1! 


1 
l 


1 


LIBRARY 
THE  GAS  AGE 


No. 


POLITICAL    ESSAYS, 


BY 

PARKE    GODWIN. 


[From  Contributions  to  Putnam's  Magazine.] 


NEW  YOEK : 

DIX,   EDWARDS  &  CO.,   321   BROADWAY. 
1856. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1856,  by 

DIX,   EDWARDS  &  CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States 
for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


TO 

CHARLES    SUMNEE, 

MY  DEAR  SUMNER: 

I  TAKE  the  liberty  of  dedicating  this  volume  to 
you,  because  I  know  of  no  one  more  likely  to 
approve  its  general  objects,  or  whose  name  will  lend 
it  greater  honor.  Before  you  were  prostrated  by  the 
hand  of  violence,  you  stood  first  in  the  admiration 
of  your  young  countrymen — but  now,  the  effect  of 
that  cowardly  blow  has  been,  to  make  you  first  also 
in  their  sympathy  and  love. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Your  Friend, 

PARKE    GODWIN. 


M182G33 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

OUR  PARTIES  AND  POLITICS     ....         1 

THE  VESTIGES  OF  DESPOTISM      .        .         .  57 

OUR  FOREIGN  INFLUENCE  AND  POLICY     .  .      89 

ANNEXATION    .         .         .*        .                  .  128 

"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS"         .        .  175 

SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?          .         .  .210 

THE  GREAT  QUESTION         ....  250 

NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?   .         .  .     280 

KANSAS  MUST  BE  FREE        .        .        .        .  307 


OUR   PARTIES    AND   POLITICS, 

FOREIGNERS  complain  that  they  cannot  easily 
understand  oar  political  parties,  and  we  do  not 
wonder  at  it,  because  those  parties  do  not  al 
ways  understand  themselves.  Their  contro 
versies,  like  the  old  homoousian  disputes  of  the 
church,  often  turn  upon  such  niceties  of  dis 
tinction,  that  to  discern  their  differences  requires 
optics  as  sharp  as  those  of  Butler's  hero,  who 
could 

"  Sever  and  divide 

Betwixt  northwest  and  northwest  side." 

What  with  whigs,  democratic  whigs,  demo 
crats,  true  democrats,  barnburners,  hunkers, 
silver  grays,  woolly  heads,  soft  shells,  hard 
shells,  national  reformers,  fire-eaters,  and  filli- 
busteros,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  the  exotic 
intellect  should  get  perplexed !  Even  to  our 
native  and  readier  apprehensions,  the  diversity 
of  principle  hidden  under  this  diversity  of 


2  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

names  is  not  always  palpable ;  while  it  must 
be  confessed,  that  our  parties  are  not  universally 
so  consistent  with  themselves  as  to  enable  one 
to  write  their  distinctive  creeds  in  a  horn-book. 

Yet,  on  a  closer  survey,  it  will  be  found 
that  parties  here  are  very  much  the  same,  in 
their  characteristic  tendencies  and  aims,  as 
parties  elsewhere.  They  originate  in  that 
human  nature  which  is  the  same  everywhere 
(modified  by  local  circumstances  only),  and 
they  exhibit,  under  the  various  influences  of 
personal  constitution,  ambition,  interest,  etc., 
the  same  contrasts  of  selfishness  and  virtue,  of 
craft  and  honesty,  of  genius  and  falsehood,  of 
wisdom  and  folly. 

It  is  true  that  our  differences  are  not  seem 
ingly  so  fundamental  and  well-pronounced  as 
those  of  older  nations.  We  have  no  contests 
here  as  the  elementary  principles  of  govern 
ment.  A  monarchist  is,  perhaps,  not  to  be  found 
from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Rio  Grande,  any 
more  than  a  rhinoceros  or  lammergeyer.  We 
are  all  republicans;  we  all  believe  in  the  su 
premacy  of  the  people  ;  and  our  convictions, 
as  to  the  general  nature  and  sphere  of  legis- 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  3 

lation,  are  as  uniform  as  if  they  had  been  pro 
duced  by  a  mental  ambrotype. 

But  within  the  range  of  this  more  general 
unanimity,  there  has  been  room  and  verge 
enough,  for  the  evolution  of  many  heated  and 
distempered  antagonisms.  We  are  agreed  that 
our  governments  shall  be  republican,  but  as  to 
what  functions  they  should  exercise  and  what 
they  should  leave  to  the  people  we  are  not 
agreed  ;  we  agree  that  the  separate  States  shall 
be  sovereign  and  independent,  but  to  what  ex 
tent  they  may  carry  that  sovereignty  and  in 
dependence  we  do  not  agree  ;  we  agree  that 
the  benefits  of  the  Federal  Union  shall  be,  from 
time  to  time,  extended  to  new  territories,  but 
on  what  terms  they  may  be  extended  we  do 
not  agree ;  we  agree,  generally,  to  keep  aloof 
from  the  domestic  affairs  of  other  nations,  but 
as  to  the  details  of  our  foreign  policy  inside  of 
this  salutary  rule,  we  do  not  agree.  There  have 
been  among  us  always,  on  all  these  points, 
radical  dissents  and  oppositions.  We  have 
parties  of  many  stripes  and  calibres  —  some 
which  favor,  and  some  which  oppose,  a  larger 
concentration  of  power  in  the  Federal  Govern- 


POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 


ment ;  some  which  propose  to  accomplish  their 
social  objects  by  legislative,  and  others  by 
voluntary  action  ;  some  which  desire  to  restrict 
the  elective  franchise,  and  others  to  extend  it; 
some  which  repel  the  acquisition  of  more  ter 
ritory,  and  others  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  war 
for  its  sake  ;  some  which  aim  at  the  destruction 
of  the  Union,  and  others  eager  to  sacrifice  honor 
and  liberty  itself  to  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  In  short,  there  is  among  our  differences 
of  opinion,  an  endless  scope  for  the  formation  of 
parties. 

It  is  a  common  saying,  we  know,  that  there 
can  be  but  two  parties  in  any  nation  —  the 
movement  and  the  stationary  parties  —  and  this 
is  true  as  a  philosophical  generalization,  de 
duced  from  the  changes  of  large  periods  of  time ; 
but  it  is  not  true  always  as  a  contemporary  and 
actual  fact.  In  the  long  run,  of  course,  alJ 
parties  will  be  found  to  have  advanced  or  re 
tarded  the  progress  of  society ;  but  in  the  im 
mediate  and  present  aspect  of  things,  parties 
are  more  than  two — are  half  a  dozen  at  least. 
Look  where  we  will,  provided  free  political  dis 
cussion  is  allowed,  and  we  shall  find,  to  use  the 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  5 

French  mode  of  marking  their  relations,  a 
centre,  a  right,  a  left,  a  right  centre,  and  a  left 
centre,  besides  a  miscellaneous  herd  of  eccen 
trics,  each  representing  some  contrast  or  gra 
dation  of  opinion.  In  France,  for  instance, 
before  France  was  reduced  by  the  bayonet  to 
a  single  man,  there  were  the  several  branches 
of  the  legitimists,  the  Napoleonites,  the  repub 
licans,  the  mountain,  and  the  socialists  ;  and  in 
Great  Britain,  there  are  the  tories,  the  whigs, 
the  radicals,  the  chartists,  etc.  In  the  same 
way,  in  this  country,  we  possess  the  several 
combinations  to  which  we  referred  in  the  open 
ing  paragraph  ;  and  though  their  differences,  as 
we  have  said,  are  not  so  marked  as  those  which 
prevail  between  the  legitimists  and  the  repub 
licans  of  Europe,  they  are  still  valid,  positive, 
and  important. 

The  earliest  parties  known  to  our  history 
were  those  of  the  colonial  times,  when  the 
grand  debate  as  to  the  rights  of  the  colonies 
was  getting  under  way,  and  all  men  took  sides, 
either  as  whigs  or  tories.  They  had  imported 
their  distinctive  names,  and  to  some  extent 
their  distinctive  principles,  from  the  mother 


6  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

country,  from  the  iron  times  of  Cromwell  and 
the  Puritans ;  but,  in  the  progress  of  the  con 
troversy,  as  it  often  happens,  they  were  led 
upon  wholly  new  and  vastly  broader  grounds 
of  dispute  than  they  had  at  first  dreamed.  The 
little  squabble,  as  to  the  limits  and  reaches  of 
the  imperial  jurisdiction,  expanded  into  a  war 
for  national  existence,  nay,  for  the  rights  of 
humanity  ;  and  what  was  at  the  outset  a  violent 
talk  only  about  stamp-duties,  and  taxes  on  tea 
— mean  and  trivial  even  in  its  superficial  as 
pects — concealed  the  noblest  political  theories, 
the  sublimest  political  experiments,  that  had 
yet  been  recorded  in  the  annals  of  our  race. 
The  whigs  of  the  Revolution  gave  to  the  world 
a  new  idea — that  of  a  state  founded  upon  the 
inherent  freedom  and  dignity  of  the  individual 
man.  Gathering  out  of  the  ages  all  the  aspira 
tions  of  great  and  noble  souls,  all  the  yearnings 
of  oppressed  peoples,  they  had  concentrated 
them  into  one  grand  act  of  emancipation.  They 
actualized  the  dreams  of  time,  and  in  the  latest 
era  of  the  world,  and  on  a  new  continent,  in 
troduced,  as  they  fondly  supposed,  that  reign 
of  heavenly  justice  which  the  primitive  golden 


OUR    PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  7 

ages  had  faintly  foreshadowed,  which  patriots 
had  so  long  struggled  and  sighed  for  in  vain, 
and  which  the  political  martyrs  of  eveiy  clime 
had  welcomed  only  in  beatific  vision. 

It  was  this  patriot  party  of  the  Kevolution 
which  gave  the  inspiration  and  original  impulse 
to  our  nation,  which  formed  its  character  and 
sentiment,  and  erected  the  standard  of  opinion, 
which  was  destined,  for  some  years,  at  least,  to 
be  the  guide  of  all  our  movements.  It  fused 
the  national  mind  by  the  warmth  of  its  con 
victions,  or  rather  by  the  fiery  earnestness  of 
them,  into  that  single  thought  of  democratic 
freedom  which  has  been  the  ground  and  sub 
stance  of  our  national  unity.  The  medley  of 
settlers,  chance-wafted  hitherward,  from  the 
several  corners  of  Europe,  like  seeds  borne  by 
the  winds,  were  nourished  by  it  into  an  organic 
whole,  and  have  since  been  retained  by  its 
influences,  under  all  diversities  of  constitu 
tion,  climate,  and  interest,  in  the  coherence 
and  uniformity  of  a  national  being.  Our 
fathers  were  so  not  merely  after  the  flesh,  but 
after  the  spirit.  They  generated  our  minds  as 
well  as  our  bodies,  and  their  sublime  thought 


POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 


of  a  free  state  (an  inspiration  greater  than  their 
knowledge),  has  been  the  fruitful  genii  of  our 
best  inward  and  outward  life.  No  other  people 
have  had  so  grand  a  national  origin ;  for  we 
were  born  in  a  disinterested  war  for  human 
rights,  and  not  for  territory,  and  under  the 
stimulus  of  an  idea  which  still  transcends  the 
highest  practical  achievements  -of  our  race. 

It  has  been  the  greatness,  the  predominance, 
the  profound  inherency  of  this  original  Ameri 
can  idea,  which,  forcing  a  general  conviction, 
has  produced  the  comparative  uniformity 
of  our  parties,  and  confined  their  divisions 
to  transient  or  trivial  and  personal  differ 
ences.  But  there  is  also  another  cause  for 
that  uniformity,  in  the  fact  that  as  societies  ad 
vance  in  the  career  of  civilization,  their  politi 
cal  divisions  are  less  marked,  but  more  subtle 
in  principle  ;  less  gross,  but  more  indirect  in 
the  display  of  animosity  and  feeling.  The  rival 
chiefs  of  two  factions  of  savages,  who  quarrel  as 
to  which  shall  eat  the  other,  settle  the  matter 
with  a  blow  of  the  tomahawk;  but  in  a  more 
refined  community,  the  entire  population  may 
get  at  loggerheads,  over  the  construction  of  a 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  9 

phrase  in  some  dubious  document,  which  they 
determine  by  vociferous  clamors  at  a  public 
meeting,  or  in  able  leading  articles.  One 
is  sometimes  amused,  therefore,  when  a 
foreigner  in  the  United  States — an  English 
man,  for  instance — complacently  remarks  that 
we  have  no  great  parties,  no  profound  ra 
dical,  comprehensive  questions,  about  which 
we  may  beat  out  each  other's  brains. — 
"  You  have  no  question  of  church  and  state," 
he  says ;  "  no  immense  projects  for  parliament 
ary  reform  ;  no  tremendous  interests  hanging 
upon  some  old  law  ;  no  widely-separated  and 
powerful  classes  to  be  plunged  into  fierce  and 
terrific  conflicts.  All  that  you  quarrel  about  is 
summed  up  in  the  per  centage  of  a  tariff,  the 
building  of  a  railroad,  or  the  possession  of 
a  few  offices."  In  saying  this,  John  imagines 
that  he  has  reduced  us  to  a  lilliputian  insigni 
ficance  and  littleness,  especially  by  the  side  of 
his  obese  and  ponderous  magnitude.  But  we 
answer  him,  that  those  "  great  questions," 
about  which  he  and  his  fellows,  all  the  world 
over,  are  pummeling  each  other,  or  at  least, 

tearing  their  passions  to  tatters,  were  settled 
1* 


10  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

for  us  before  we  were  born,  and  that  we  esteem 
it  a  happiness  and  glory  to  have  got  rid  of 
them,  even  though  they  have  left  us  little  more 
to  quarrel  about  than  the  cut  of  a  neighbor's 
coat,  or  the  shape  of  his  nose.  We  also  hint  to 
him,  further,  that  the  progress  of  nations,  as  we 
conceive  it,  consists  in  the  gradual  decay  of 
political,  and  the  growth  of  social  questions, 
or,  in  other  words,  in  the  simplification  and  re 
duction  of  the  machinery  of  government,  with 
which  politics  have  chiefly  to  do,  and  the  conse 
quent  extinction  of  politicians,  who  become 
more  and  more  a  pernicious  class,  with,  at  the 
same  time,  a  continuous  aggrandizement  of  so 
ciety  itself,  of  its  industry,  its  arts,  its  local 
improvements,  and  its  freedom  as  well  as  order. 
The  most  natural  and  the  most  permanent 
of  our  past  political  divisions  has  arisen  out 
of  the  peculiar  structure  of  the  federal  govern 
ment,  the  nature  and  extent  of  its  jurisdiction, 
and  its  relations  to  the  States.  As  soon  as  the 
Federal  Constitution  went  into  effect,  the 
differences  which  had  almost  defeated  its  ratifi 
cation  before  the  people — the  counteracting 
centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces,  as  they  are 


OUR    PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  11 

called — were  developed  into  strong  and  positive 
party  hostilities.  The  federalists  and  the  anti- 
federalists  took  possession  of  the  political  field, 
and  the  noise  of  their  conflicts  sounded 
through  many  years,  giving  a  sting  to  the 
debates  of  the  Senate  House,  embittering 
the  intercourse  of  domestic  life,  and  bequeath 
ing  prejudices  to  the  minds  of  posterity. 

The  mere  disputes  as  to  the  authority  of 
the  general  government  might  not,  perhaps, 
have  led  to  such  earnest  and  envenomed  bat 
tles,  at  the  outset,  if  they  had  not  been  com 
plicated,  especially  under  the  leadership  of 
Jefferson  and  Hamilton,  with  the  profounder 
questions  of  individual  rights  just  then  agitat 
ing  the  Old  World.  Hamilton,  a  man  of  talent, 
bred  in  camps,  distrustful  of  the  masses,  an 
admirer  of  the  British  Constitution,  and  accus 
tomed  to  the  rigor  of  military  rule,  was  disposed 
to  rely  upon  the  strong  arm  of  government, 
and  may  be  regarded  as  the  representative  of 
the  sentiment  of  LAW  :  while  Jefferson,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  man  of  genius,  self-confident, 
generous,  sanguine,  tolerant  of  theories,  an 
acolyte,  if  not  a  teacher,  of  the  French  school 


12  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  manners  and  thought,  leaned  to  the  sponta 
neous  action  of  the  people,  and  was  the  repre 
sentative  of  LIBERTY.  Thus,  the  party  of 
State  rights  and  the  party  of  liberty  came  to  be 
identified,  and  took  the  name,  after  a  time,  of 
the  democratic  republican  party,  while  feder 
alism,  or  the  doctrine  of  a  strong  central  gov 
ernment,  jumped  in  naturally  with  the  doctrine 
of  law  and  order.  There  was  a  double  pres 
sure  of  tendencies  separating  the  two  parties, 
and  intensifying  their  hatreds,  and,  in  the  ex 
acerbations  of  the  times,  inducing  them  to 
accuse  each  other  respectively  of  tyranny  and 
licentiousness.  A  federalist,  in  the  opinions  of 
the  republicans  of  those  days,  was  only  a  mon 
archist  in  disguise,  watching  his  opportunity  to 
strangle  the  infant  liberties  of  his  country  in 
the  cradle,  and  to  restorer  the  emancipated 
colonies  to  their  dependence  upon  Great  Bri 
tain,  while  the  federalist  retorted  the  generous 
imputation  of  his  adversary,  by  calling  him  a 
jacobin,  a  scoundrel,  and  a  demagogue,  eager  to 
uproot  the  foundations  of  order,  and  let  loose 
the  lees  and  scum  of  French  infidelity  and 
French  immorality  upon  society.  We,  at  this 


OUR    PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  13 

day,  looking  through  the  serener  atmosphere 
of  history,  know  that  they  were  both  mistaken 
in  their  extreme  opinions,  and  that  they  were 
both  good  patriots  after  all,  necessary  to  each 
other,  as  it  now  appears,  in  tempering  the  dan 
gerous  excesses  which  might  have  followed  the 
unchecked  predominance  of  either,  and  in  giv 
ing  a  more  uniform  and  stable  action  to  our 
untried  political  system.  But  we  cannot  con 
ceal  the  deep  significance  of  the  contest  in 
which  they  were  engaged. 

In  all  the  subsequent  changes  of  parties,  the 
distinction  of  federalist  and  anti-federalist 
has  been  maintained,  in  theory  at  least, 
and  sometimes  in  name,  if  not  so  rigidly 
in  practice.  It  is  a  distinction  that  will 
only  pass  away  with  the  final  establishment 
of  the  truth,  though  it  may  often  be  ob 
scured  in  the  fluctuating  movements  of  poli 
tics.  During  the  war  of  1812-15,  the  Federal 
ists,  as  they  were  termed,  were  the  most  vigor 
ous  opponents  of  the  use  of  power  by  the 
general  government,  and  their  most  offensive 
acts — the  proceedings  of  the  Hartford  Conven 
tion — were  nothing  worse  than  an  attempt,  as 


14  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

it  was  deemed,  to  arrest  and  restrain  the  en 
croachments  of  the  central  authority  upon  the 
rights  and  interests  of  the  separate  States  ; 
whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  the  most  enormous 
exercise  of  that  authority — the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana  by  Jefferson — the  suppression  of 
South  Carolina  nullification  by  Jackson — the 
annexation  of  Texas  by  Tyler — have  been  re 
sorted  to  by  the  leaders  of  the  so-called  demo 
cratic  or  anti-federalist  party.  Indeed,  so  little 
consistency  has  been  exhibited  by  parties  in 
this  respect,  that  it  has  been  observed,  that  in 
general,  whatever  party  is  in  possession  of  the 
federal  government  is  disposed  to  push  the  use 
of  its  functions  to  the  utmost  practicable 
verge,  while  the  party  out  of  power  opposes 
this  use,  and  assumes  the  virtue  of  continence. 
Under  the  administration  of  Jackson,  when  the 
struggle  with  the  National  Bank  arose,  the 
lines  of  demarcation  between  the  principles  of 
the  federalists  and  anti-federalists  were  once 
more  somewhat  strictly  drawn,  and  the  shib 
boleths  and  rallying  cries  of  that  day  have 
continued  to  be  used  by  the  politicians,  for  the 
most  part  impertinently,  up  to  the  present 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  15 

time.  In  the  administration  of  the  States,  too, 
there  has  been  an  undeniable  line  drawn,  a 
gulf  fixed,  as  we  may  say,  between  the  friends 
of  a  strong  and  centralized  government  and  the 
friends  of  social  and  popular  freedom  ;  but  we 
may  add,  that  as  no  party  is  now  entitled  to  a 
monopoly  of  either  class,  this  distinction  has 
subsided.  The  feelings  and  convictions  in 
which  it  originated  have  not  passed  away,  and 
they  will  not  speedily  pass  away  ;  but  there 
has  been  a  lull  in  the  public  mind,  in  respect 
to  them,  partly  produced  by  the  decided  gravi 
tation  of  opinion  to  the  democratic  theory  both 
of  Federal  and  State  Government,  and  partly 
by  the  emergencies  of  new  grounds  of  conflict. 
The  debris  of  former  convulsions  is  all  that  the 
older  parties  have  left  us. 

An  anomaly  in  the  social  system  of  some  of 
the  States,  however,  not  supposed,  when  the 
Federal  Union  was  formed,  to  be  so  pregnant 
with  consequences,  as  it  has  since  proved,  has 
been  a  chief  cause  of  the  complication  of 
parties,  and  the  principal  incentive  and  danger 
of  our  more  modern  contests. 

The  primary  idea  of  our  institutions  was,  as 


16  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

we  have  seen,  that  of  a  free  Democratic  Repub 
lic.  The  liberty  and  equality  of  the  people 
were  the  animating  spirit  of  our  revolution, 
and  the  inspiring  genius  of  the  constitutional 
structure  to  which  it  gave  rise.  But  among 
the  States,  which  form  the  elements  of  the 
confederacy,  there  are  some  not  strictly  demo 
cratic,  and  scarcely  republican.  They  are  aris 
tocracies  or  oligarchies,  built  upon  a  diversity 
of  races.  Their  political  and  social  privileges 
are  confined  to  a  class,  while  all  the  rest  of  their 
inhabitants  are  slaves. 

The  consequence  has  been  a  growing  diver 
gency,  though  it  was  not  always  apparent  or 
even  suspected,  between  the  convictions,  the 
interests  and  the  tendencies  of  one  half  the 
Union,  which  was  eminently  free  and  democra 
tic,  and  those  of  the  other  half,  which  was 
slaveholding  and  aristocratic. 

The  reasons  why  this  difference  was  not 
so  strongly  felt  at  the  outset,  were,  because  the 
slaves  were  few,  and  the  great  and  good  men 
who  formed  the  Union,  and  helped  to  knit  and 
bind  together  its  primitive  filaments,  were 
almost  unanimous  in  the  sentiment,  that  this 


OUR   PARTIES   AND    POLITICS.  17 

system  of  bondage  would  be  only  temporary. 
Like  a  growing  youth  in  the  flush  and  im 
pulse  of  his  young  strength,  they  were  scarcely 
conscious  of  the  cancer  lurking  in  the  blood. 

But  the  vice,  contrary  to  their  expectations, 
has  developed  itself — the  sentiment  in  regard 
to  it  has  changed — it  has  become  interwoven 
with  vast  and  intricate  interests,  and  it  is  now 
sustained  positively  by  political  and  philoso-  , 
phical  argument 

Another  reason  why  the  radical  vices  of  the 
federal  relation  were  not  more  speedily  extruded 
and  discovered,  was  this  :  the  slaveholders  have 
been,  for  the  most  part,  in  alliance  with  the 
democratic  or  popular  party.  Devoted  stick 
lers  for  equality  among  themselves,  fierce  lovers 
of  their  own  liberties,  which  were  to  be  secured 
from  the  molestation  of  others  only  by  a  rigid 
maintenance  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  sepa 
rate  States,  they  have  naturally  sympathized 
with  the  party  which  appeared  to  be  most 
devoted  to  these  ends.  Their  sentiment  of  per 
sonal  independence  and  right  was  the  same  sen 
timent  which  animates  the  masses  of  the  free 
States  in  their  opposition  to  the  encroachments 


18  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  power,  while  their  need  of  security  dictated 
the  same  doctrine  of  State-rights,  to  which 
the  people  adhered  in  their  instinct  for  local  self- 
government.  Thus,  the  democratic  party  of 
the  North,  and  the  State-rights  party  of  the 
South,  have  formed  what  was  called  the  great 
Republican  party  of  the  Union.  The  model 
democrats  of  the  nation,  Jefferson,  who  wrote 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Madison,  who 
was  one  of  the  ablest  expounders  of  the  Con 
stitution,  Macon,  who  tolerated  no  injustice  in 
legislation,  were  slaveholders  in  their  local 
spheres  ;  while  the  popular  party  of  the  North, 
clamoring  against  the  pretensions  of  law  and 
privilege  for  a  larger  liberty,  were  still,  strange 
to  say,  their  adherents  and  friends. 

It  was  an  alliance,  however,  which,  in  the 
very  nature  of  its  components,  could  not  en 
dure  forever.  An  aristocracy  is  compelled,  by 
the  exigencies  of  its  position,  to  become  con 
servative  ;  while  a  democracy,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  progressive.  A  league  between  them 
may  be  maintained,  so  long  as  they  have  cer 
tain  objects  in  common — an  enemy  to  repulse, 
or  a  conquest  to  achieve  —  but  when  these 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  19 

common  objects  are  attained,  their  radical  in 
compatibility  will  begin  to  appear.  It  is  im 
possible  for  men  who  sincerely  believe  in  the 
equal  rights  of  men,  to  coalesce  permanently 
with  others  whose  practice  is  an  habitual  in 
vasion  of  those  rights ;  it  is  impossible  for  an 
order  of  society,  founded  upon  the  most  un 
limited  freedom  of  labor,  to  coexist  long  in 
intimate  relations  with  a  society  founded  upon 
bond  or  forced  labor ;  and  it  is  no  less  impossi 
ble  for  political  leaders,  the  breath  of  whose 
nostrils  is  popular  emancipation  and  progress, 
to  combine  with  leaders  whose  life  is  an  utter 
denial  of  emancipation  and  progress. 

So  long  as  the  South  and  the  North,  in  the 
earlier  periods  of  national  development,  looked 
to  the  same  ends — to  certain  general  organizing 
purposes — to  a  strict  construction  of  the  Con 
stitution — to  a  denial  of  the  schemes  for  en 
larging  the  federal  power — to  the  independence 
of  the  States — they  were  able  to  act  together, 
and  the  happiest  results  have  been  promoted 
by  that  unity  ;  but  when  their  mutual  solicitude 
for  these  ends  was  outgrown — when,  in  the  pro 
gress  of  empire,  the  question  arose,  whether  the 


20  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

social  system  of  the  one  or  the  other  should 
prevail,  to  the  exclusion,  which  is  unavoidable, 
of  its  opponent,  their  friendship  grew  sultry, 
and  a  strenuous  grapple  and  fight  became  im 
minent. 

If  we  were  called  upon,  then,  to  describe  the 
political  parties  of  this  nation,  as  they  are,  or 
as  they  have  been  gradually  formed,  by  its 
developing  circumstances,  we  should  say  that 
they  were,  1st,  The  Pro-slavery,  sometimes, 
though  unjustly,  called  the  Southern  party, 
which  is  the  propagandist  of  the  opinions  and 
interests  of  the  small  oligarchy — about  60,000 
in  al] — who  hold  their  fellow-men  in  bondage  ; 
2d,  The  Democrats,  divided  into  the  traditional 
or  routine  democrats,  who  masquerade  in  the 
faded  wardrobe  of  democracy,  but  care  more  for 
office  than  principle,  and  the  real  democrats, 
who  still  retain  the  inspirations  of  the  Jefferson 
school ;  3d,  The  Whigs,  who  are  the  legitimate 
depositories  of  federal  principles,  crossed  and 
improved  by  modern  liberalism  ;  4th,  The  Fire- 
eaters,  who  seem  to  be  opposed  to  the  union 
of  the  Northern  and  Southern  States  under  any 
circumstances ;  and  5th,  The  Abolitionists,  who 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  21 

are  rather  a  moral  than  a  political  combination, 
though  a  large  branch  of  them  are  not  opposed 
to  decided  political  action.  These  we  shall 
notice  briefly  in  the  reverse  order  in  which  they 
are  named.* 

The  Abolitionists  and  the  Fire-eaters,  rep 
resenting  the  extremes  of  northern  and  south 
ern  feeling,  have  had  no  little  influence  on  pub 
lic  opinion,  but  hardly  any  as  yet  on  the  direct 
action  of  the  government.  In  eloquence,  earn 
estness,  and,  we  suspect,  integrity  of  purpose, 
they  are  superior  to  the  other  parties  (the 
Abolitionists,  in  particular,  absorbing  some  of 
the  finest  ability  of  the  country,  oratorical  and 
literary,  and  a  great  deal  of  the  noblest  aspira 
tion),  but  they  are  both  too  extravagant  in 
opinion,  and  too  violent  in  procedure,  to  con 
ciliate  a  large  and  effective  alliance.  Their  de 
nunciations  of  the  Union,  proceeding  from  con- 

*  At  the  time  this  was  written,  the  new  Republican  party, 
which  is  a  fusion  of  the  liberal  men  of  all  the  old  parties,  on 
the  ground  of  hostility  to  the  spread  of  slavery,  and  the 
"  Know-Nothing  party,"  who,  fancying  that  they  have  had 
a  surfeit  of  foreigners,  are  afflicted  with  a  kind  of  political 
indigestion  and  nausea,  were  not  born.  They  are  referred 
to  elsewhere. 


22  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

trary  views  of  its  effects,  the  one  condemning 
it  because  it  is  supposed  to  sanction,  and  the 
other,  because  it  is  supposed  to  interfere  with 
slavery,  neutralize  each  other,  and  lead  more 
tranquil  minds — minds  whose  brains  are  not 
boiling  in  their  skulls — to  a  conviction  that 
they  are  both  alike  wrong.  The  federal  Con 
stitution  does  not  recognize  the  existence  of 
slavery  as  such,  at  all,  and  in  no  form,  except 
indirectly ;  nor  does  it,  on  the  other  hand,  con 
fer  upon  the  government  any  authority  for 
meddling  with  slavery,  treating  the  subject 
wisely  as  a  matter  of  exclusive  state  juris 
diction  ;  yet  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  that 
instrument  are  alike  instinct  with  freedom,  and 
rightly  interpreted,  set  up  an  insuperable 
barrier  against  the  extension  of  any  form  of 
servitude.  The  malice  of  its  enemies  finds 
food,  not  in  the  legitimate  operations  of  the 
organic  law,  as  the  framers  of  it  intended  it  to 
operate,  but  "in  those  deviations  which  the  craft 
of  politicians  has  superinduced  upon  its  action, 
in  those  warpings  and  torturings  of  its  struc 
ture,  by  which  it  has  been  made  to  cover  more 
than  it  reaches. 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  23 

It  is  no  offense  to  the  Whigs,  we  trust,  for 
indeed  it  is  only  repeating  the  frequent  avowals 
of  their  own  leading  exponents  to  say,  that  as 
a  party  they  are  pretty  much  defunct.  What 
ever  uses  their  organization  may  have  subserved 
in  the  course  of  our  political  history,  and  no 
body  will  deny  them  some  merits,  however 
splendid  the  talent  by  which  their  long  but 
losing  struggle  has  been  illustrated,  from  the 
day  in  which  their  policy  was  inaugurated  by 
Hamilton,  until  that  in  which  its  funeral  dis 
course  was  uttered  in  "  a  fine  rich  brogue,"  by 
by  General  Scott,  it  has  never  succeeded  in 
becoming,  for  more  than  a  year  or  two  at  a 
time,  a  predominant  party.  It  has  been  able, 
on  occasions,  to  carry  its  principles  into  effect, 
but  not  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  permanent  ma 
jority.  Its  distinguishing  measures  have  been, 
on  the  other  hand,  repeatedly  and  unequivocally 
condemned.  Not  the  most  sanguine  adherent 
can  now  hope  to  see  them  revived.  The  ques 
tions  of  a  National  Bank,  of  a  Protective  Tariff, 
of  Internal  Improvements,  of  the  Distribution 
of  the  Public  Lands,  are  adjudicated  questions; 
no  court  exists  wherein  to  bring  an  appeal; 


24  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

and  the  wisest  thing,  for  those  who  have  been 
worsted  in  the  controversy,  is  to  do  what  the 
most  of  them  have  done — submit.  Their  once 
great  and  accomplished  leaders  sleep  in  honor 
able  graves ;  no  exigencies  of  state  will  ever 
again  awaken  the  solemn  eloquence  of  Webster, 
nor  the  clarion  voice  of  Clay  ever  again  summon 
his  lieges  to  the  battle.  The  masters  are  dead, 
and  their  followers  are  dispersed  or  at  feud  ;  or 
should  they  rally  again,  it  can  only  be  under 
other  names  and  for  deeper  and  nobler  objects. 
A  remnant  of  the  camp  of  former  times,  a  for 
lorn  hope  with  Millard  Fillmore  as  the  drum- 
major,  may  strive  to  keep  the  old  organism 
alive ;  but  it  is  clear,  in  the  present  aspect  of 
affairs,  that  it  cannot  possess  more'than  a  semi- 
vitality,  useless  for  good  and  painful  to  behold. 
We  do  not  say  that  the  theory  of  politics  which 
has  hitherto  animated  the  Whigs  is  extinct, 
that  our  people  will  no  more  be  dazzled  by 
visions  of  strong  and  splendid  governments,  nor 
seek  to  effect  by  unitary  legislation  what  others 
hope  to  accomplish  by  voluntary  effort ;  on  the 
contrary,  this  tendency  is  perhaps  as  strong  now 
as  ever  it  was  ;  but  what  we  assert  is,  that  the 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  25 

particular  measures  for  which  the  Whigs  have 
been  banded  together,  are  obsolete,  and  the 
party,  as  a  party,  utterly  without  meaning. 

The  Democrats  of  the  purer  stamp,  the  real 
Democrats  as  we  have  called  them,  are  like  the 
Whigs,  in  a  state  of  comparative  dissolution ; 
or  rather,  they  are  scattered  through  their  party 
at  large,  and  elsewhere,  as  leaven  through  meal, 
without  having  any  effective  control  in  it. 
These  democrats  still  abide  by  the  original 
principles  of  democracy — represent  the  popu 
lar  instincts — cling  to  living  ideas  of  justice, 
and  equal  rights  and  progress,  and  refuse  to 
follow  their  fellows  in  a  pell-mell  abandonment 
of  themselves  to  the  seductions  of  the  slave 
holders.  They  are  not  few  in  number,  as  we 
are  inclined  to  think,  either  at  the  North  or  the 
South,  comprising,  as  we  fain  hope,  a  majority 
of  the  young  men  of  the  nation,  yet  uncorrupt- 
ed  by  official  contacts,  as  well  as  possessing  the 
sympathies  of  many  among  parties  which  go  by 
other  names ;  but,  having  no  separate  organi 
zation  anywhere,  they  are  sadly  overborne  by 
the  practiced  managers  of  the  old  organiza 
tions,  who  wield  the  machinery  of  party  action, 


26  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  consequently  of  power.  In  their  external 
or  immediate  pretensions  they  are  not  formida 
ble  ;  but  in  the  might  of  their  sentiments  they 
will  capture  the  future.  A  steady  continuance 
in  integrity,  a  deaf  ear  turned  to  the  charmings 
of  the  adders  of  office,  an  eagerness  to  consult, 
amid  all  the  shiftings  of  policy,  the  fresh  im 
pulses  of  the  honest  young  heart  of  the  nation, 
will,  ere  long,  gather  about  them  the  intellect, 
the  virtue,  and  the  popular  instinct  of  right, 
which  are  the  redeeming  elements  of  states. 

The  other  class  of  Democrats,  whom  we 
denominate  the  official  or  machine-democrats, 
because  they  move  and  talk  as  they  are  wound 
up,  mean  as  they  might  be  supposed  to  be,  yet 
constitute,  in  reality,  a  distinct  and  powerful 
body.  It  is  not  a  new  remark,  we  believe, 
that  successful  parties  collect  about  them 
large  squads  of  speculating  politicians,  who 
care  nothing  for  truth  or  righteousness,  while 
they  have  a  ravenous  appetite  for  distinc 
tion  and  provender.  They  are  not  precisely 
camp-followers,  because  they  sometimes  fight 
in  the  ranks,  but  their  interest  in  contests  is 
determined  rather  by  the  prospect  of  booty 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  27 

than  by  any  convictions  they  entertain.  Like 
Bunyan's  By-ends,  who  followed  Religion  for 
the  silver  slippers  she  wore,  they  are  patriots 
because  it  is  profitable  to  be  patriots.  In  other 
words,  they  are  democrats  because  the  demo 
crats  are  generally  in  the  ascendant,  which 
means  in  office.  Sometimes  they  slip  round  to 
the  Whigs,  when  the  Whigs  have  a  sure  look 
for  success ;  but  they  find  it  safer,  in  the  long 
run,  to  be  of  the  other  side.  No  men  more 
noisy  than  they  in  shouting  the  usual  rallying 
cries,  none  more  glib  in  the  commonplaces  of 
electioneering,  and  none  so  apparently  earnest 
and  sincere.  But  at  heart  they  are  only  the 
greediest  and  shabbiest  of  scoundrels.  It  is 
upon  their  shoulders  that  incompetent  and  bad 
men  are  borne  to  places  of  high  trust,  and  from 
them  that  the  Praetorian  guards  of  republics 
are  selected  in  the  hour  of  their  eclipse  and 
hastening  decay. 

This  class  of  democrats  flourishes  chiefly  in 
those  calm  times  when  no  great  controversy 
agitates  the  nation,  and  awakens  strong  and 
burning  passions.  In  crises  which  call  for  lofty 
ambitions  and  abilities,  they  are  of  no  use ;  in 


28  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

fact,  they  are  shriveled  and  consumed  by  the 
heat  of  them,  and  slink  out  of  the  way  till  the 
fiery  storm  be  past.  But  they  return  with  the 
return  of  public  indifference  or  reaction,  when 
there  are  few  who  care  to  watch  them,  like  the 
flies,  which  a  strong  wind  had  blown  from  their 
carrion.  As  the  reins  of  power  at  those  times 
are  apt  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  little  men — 
of  a  Tyler  or  a  Pierce,  for  instance — it  is  the 
golden  hour  for  narrow  intellects  and  base 
hearts.  The  art  of  administration  at  once  de 
generates  into  mere  trickery  or  management. 
Toads  crawl  into  the  seats  of  the  eagles.  Public 
policy  fluctuates  between  the  awkwardness 
of  conscious  incompetence  and  the  arro 
gance  of  bullyisrn.  The  possession  of  office 
becomes  a  badge,  either  of  imbecility,  or  cun 
ning,  or  insolence.  It  is  won  by  services  that 
elsewhere  would  warrant  a  halter,  and  it  is 
conferred,  not  as  the  meed  of  patriotic  deserts, 
but  as  the  wages  of  supple  and  mercenary  ser 
vice.  They  who  dispense  patronage,  do  so  in 
the  conviction  of  Walpole,  that  every  man  has 
his  price,  and  they  who  receive  it,  take  it  with 
a  full  knowledge  that  the  stamp  of  venality  is 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  29 

on  every  token  of  silver.  Superiors  in  place 
are  not  superiors  in  merit,  only  superiors  in 
craft  and  recklesness ;  while  inferiors  don  the 
gilt  lace  and  plush  of  their  official  varletism 
without  a  blush  on  their  cheeks,  or  a  sense  of 
shame  at  their  hearts.  Government,  in  short, 
is  converted  into  a  vast  conspiracy  of  place 
men,  managed  by  the  adroiter  villains  of  the 
set  who  control  elections,  dictate  legislation, 
defeat  reforms,  and  infuse  gradually  their 
own  muck-worm  spirit  into  the  very  body  of 
the  community.  The  masses,  under  the  para 
lysis  of  such  a  domination,  seem  to  be  rendered 
insensible  to  the  usual  influences  of  honor  and 
virtuous  principle  ;  are  deadened  almost  to  the 
heroic  examples  of  their  fathers  ;  lose  the  in 
spiriting  traditions  of  an  earlier  greatness  and 
grandeur  of  conduct ;  and  virtually,  if  not 
actually,  sink  into  slaves.  Then,  schemers  of 
wrong  riot  in  the  impunity  of  licence,  and 
projects  of  wickedness  are  broached,  which, 
a  few  years  before,  would  have  caused  a 
shiver  of  indignation  to  run  through  the  whole 
land. 

The  Pro-Slavery  Party,  sometimes  called  the 


30  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

Southern  Party,  we  are  unwilling  to  speak  of 
by  this  name,  because  we  carefully  distinguish 
between  its'  southern  members,  who  are  the 
propagandists  of  slavery,  and  those  gentlemen 
of  the  South  who  simply  wish  their  peculiar 
domestic  system  to  be  let  alone  ;  while  we  do 
not  distinguish  between  them  and  their  north 
ern  coadjutors — dough-faces  are  they  hight — 
who  are  their  superserviceable  instruments.  The 
first  distinction  we  make,  because  we  know 
that  there  are  large  numbers  of  intelligent  and 
conscientious  people  at  the  South  who  do  not 
oelieve  that  slavery  is  a  good  or  a  finality :  on 
the  contrary,  who  feel  that  it  is  a  burden  at 
best — a  sad  and  dreadful  inheritance  :  who  are 
anxious  to  manage  it  wisely,  with  a  view  to  its 
ultimate  extinction ;  and,  consequently,  would 
dread  to  see  it  strengthened  or  extended, 
looking  with  hope  and  Christian  prayer  to  the 
day  when  the  combined  influences  of  modern 
Industrialism,  and  Democracy,  and  Christianity, 
shall  have  relieved  them  of  their  painful  weight 
of  responsibility.  But  we  do  not  make  the 
second  distinction,  because  the  most  efficient, 
and  by  far  the  most  despicable  branch  of  the 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  31 

Pro-Slavery  Party  is  that  which,  educated  at 
the  North,  under  all  the  genial  inspirations 
of  a  free  condition  of  existence,  still  volun 
tarily  casts  itself  at  the  feet  of  Slavery, 
to  eat  the  dirt  of  its  footmarks,  and  lick  the 
sores  on  its  limbs.  For  the  first  class  of  slave 
holders,  we  cherish  not  only  a  profound 
sympathy,  but  a  genuine  esteem ;  we  have 
friends  among  them  whose  excellences  of 
character  are  themes  for  meditation  and  grati 
tude  ;  and  to  the  propagators  of  the  system, 
even,  we  can  attribute  an  entire  honesty  of 
purpose,  though  a  mistaken  one  ;  but  for  its 
cringing  northern  sycophants  we  have  no  feel 
ing  but  one  of  unmitigated  pity  and  con 
tempt. 

This  Pro-Slavery  Party,  which  grew  mainly 
out  of  the  old  republican  or  democratic  party, 
and  which  has  never  even  taken  a  distinct  name, 
has  been  the  successful  party  of  our  history. 
It  has  achieved  a  more  signal  ascendency 
than  any  other  party,  and  it  has  done  so, 
not  by  superior  ability  nor  a  more  illustrious 
virtue,  but  by  dint  of  its  tact,  and  a  compact 
and  persistent  determination.  Its  leaders,  per- 


32  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ceiving  at  an  early  day  that  they  should  play 
a  losing  game,  if  they  attempted  to  stand  alone, 
trusting  to  the  ordinary  means  of  success — to 
the  natural  supremacy  of  talent,  to  the  growth 
of  numbers,  and  to  the  rectitude  of  their  cause 
— hit  upon  the  expedient  of  identifying  them 
selves  with  the  popular  party  of  the  North, 
Having  accomplished  that,  they  gradually  di 
rected  that  party  to  the  defense  and  spread  of 
their  peculiar  doctrines.  Not  satisfied  with 
the  concession,  which  every  intelligent  and 
judicious  northerner  was  then  glad  to  make, 
that  slavery  was  a  system  exclusively  with 
in  the  control  of  the  States,  they  first  insinu 
ated  and  then  insisted  that  slavery  was  not  to 
be  discussed  at  all  at  the  North,  because  a 
moral  interference  was  quite  as  intolerable 
as  a  direct  political  interference.  This  preten 
sion,  which  was  just  the  same  as  if  Russia  or 
Turkey  should  insist  that  the  principles  of  ab 
solutism  should  not  be  discussed  in  the  United 
States,  because  Russia  and  Turkey  had  com 
mercial  treaties  with  the  United  States,  found 
merchants  sordid  enough  to  instigate  mobs 
against  those  who  questioned  it,  and  poli- 


OUE   PAKTIES    AND   POLITICS.  33 

ticians  wicked  enough  to  entrench  it  behind  the 
laws.  Yet  the  taboo  of  sanctity  did  not  stop 
there,  but  was  drawn  around  regions  in  which 
all  the  States  were  clearly  and  equally  inter 
ested — such  as  the  district  of  Columbia  and  the 
public  lands — while  the  Post  Office,  common  to 
all,  was  forbidden  to  carry  "  incendiary  docu 
ments,"  as  every  argument  or  appeal  against 
the  system  was  called,  and  petitions  to  Con 
gress  referring  in  the  remotest  manner  to  it, 
were  treated  with  contumely  and  disdain. 

This  point  once  reached,  it  was  easy  to  take  a 
bolder  stand,  and  to  clamor,  with  all  the  vehe 
mence  of  partisan  heat,  for  the  introduction  of 
slavery  into  those  new  and  virgin  territories 
which  Providence  had  opened  on  our  Western 
borders,  as  we  had  fondly  hoped,  for  the  recep 
tion  of  the  outcast  republicans  of  Europe,  and 
for  a  new  and  grander  display  of  the  beneficent 
influence  of  republicanism.  And  this  impudent 
claim — a  claim  which  had  no  validity  in  law 
nor  sanction  in  humanity — the  pretense  that 
a  local  institution,  existing  entirely  by  munici 
pal  usage,  and  without  an  iota  of  validity  be 
yond  that — should  override  all  considerations 
2* 


34  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  justice  and  policy  under  a  threat  of  civil 
war,  in  case  of  its  disallowance — was  not 
too  much  for  the  forbearance  of  the  North, 
in  its  ardent  devotion  to  peace  and  the 
Union  !  Ah  !  how  one  submission  begets  an 
other,  until  the  chains  of  a  servitude  are 
riveted  around  the  necks  of  the  victim  !  The 
southern  party,  thus  triumphing  in  the  ter 
ritories,  demanded  in  the  next  place,  that  the 
free  States  should  be  made  a  hunting-ground 
for  slaves,  that  every  man  of  the  North  should 
be  compelled  by  law  to  do  what  no  gentleman 
of  the  South  would  do  for  himself,  or  could 
be,  under  any  circumstances,  forced  to  do  for 
others,  i.  e.,  put  himself  on  a  level  with  blood 
hounds,  and  become  a  slave-catcher ;  and  the 
law  was  passed!  Wresting  the  power  from 
the  States,  that  it  might  be  exercised  by  Con 
gress,  which  was  not  authorized  to  exercise  it, 
it  was  passed ;  creating  tribunals  of  justice 
which  Congress  was  not  authorized  to  create  ; 
rejecting  from  its  provisions  the  most  sacred 
rights  of  trial  by  jury  and  habeas  corpus,  this 
law  was  passed ;  imposing  unusual  and  offen 
sive  penalties  upon  all  who  should  refuse  to 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  35 

take  part  in  its  execution,  and  bribing  the  offi 
cers  appointed  to  administer  it  by  offers  of  higher 
wages  in  the  case  of  a  decision  adverse  to  the 
poor  fugitive  :  this  odious  and  disgraceful  law 
was  recorded  on  the  statute  books  of  the 
"  Model  Republic,"  in  the  central,  the  culmi 
nating  year  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Its 
passage,  however,  was  not  the  worst  feature  of 
the  transaction  ;  the  craven  acceptance  vouch 
safed  it  by  the  pulpits  and  the  commercial  cir 
cles  ;  the  pliant  ease  with  which  the  North 
bent  to  the  insult,  was  the  significant  fact  in 
the  proceeding,  which  more  than  all  others 
covered  many  an  honest  face  with  shame. 

It  is  proper  to  say  that  one  consideration 
prevailed  in  inducing  this  ready  humiliation  : 
the  hope  of  removing  the  question  from  the 
sphere  of  political  agitation.  We  are  bound 
to  believe,  in  justice  to  human  nature,  that 
the  many  who  welcomed  the  compromises  of 
1850,  did  so  in  the  sincerest  conviction  that 
they  would  put  an  end  to  the  difficulties  be 
tween  the  North  and  South  ;  and  we  must 
also  confess  that  it  seemed,  for  a  time,  as  if 
that  result  were  about  to  be  effected.  The  na- 


36  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

tional  conventions  of  both  the  great  parties  ac 
quiesced  in  the  settlement ;  a  President  was 
chosen  whose  inaugural  address  was  little  more 
than  a  long  proclamation  of  intended  fidelity 
to  it ;  and  Congress  came  together  and  acted 
in  a  more  fraternal  spirit  than  had  been  mani 
fested  for  years.  Alas  !  the  uncertainty  of  mor 
tal  expectations  !  In  the  midst  of  this  apparent 
quietude,  a  bill,  all  bristling  with  outrages  and 
dangers,  is  sprung  upon  the  country.  We 
mean,  of  course,  the  bill  for  the  organization  of 
Nebraska  and  Kansas  territories,  whose  sole 
object  was  to  repeal  the  solemn  prohibition, 
erected  thirty  years  ago,  against  the  spread  of 
slavery  into  those  regions.  At  a  time  when 
there  was  not  a  citizen  legitimately  within  those 
territories — when  no  part  of  the  nation,  save  a 
few  intriguers,  was  dreaming  of  such  a  measure  ; 
when  not  a  single  State,  nay,  not  a  single  in 
dividual,  had  called  for  it — in  the  face  of  the 
most  strenuous  opposition  from  North  and 
West,  this  bill  was  suddenly  presented  to  a  Con 
gress  not  elected  in  reference  to  it,  and  forced 
to  a  passage  by  all  the  tyrannical  arts  known 
to  legislation,  and  all  the  sinister  influences 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  37 

within  the  reach  of  an  unscrupulous  Executive. 
A  grosser  violation  of  all  the  requirements  of 
honor — of  all  the  safeguards  and  guarantees  of 
republicanism — was  seldom  perpetrated. 

This  we  shall  show :  and  in  the  first  place, 
let  us  remark,  that  the  pretense  by  which  the 
act  was  carried  was  fraudulent,  a  falsehood  on 
the  face  of  it,  and  designed  only  as  a  popular 
catch  for  the  unreflecting.  It  purported  to 
to  give  the  right  of  self-government  to  the  peo 
ple  of  the  territories  ;  but  it  did  no  such  thing. 
It  denied  that  right  in  the  most  important  par 
ticulars,  and  mystified  it  so  in  others  as  to  ren 
der  it  worthless.  Nominally  conceding  the 
"  non-intervention"  of  Congress  in  the  local 
affairs  of  the  territories,  it  yet  intervenes  in 
every  form  in  which  intervention  is  possible. 
It  imposes  the  Governor  and  all  other  officers 
upon  them ;  it  prescribes  unheard  of  oaths 
to  the  people ;  it  restricts  the  suffrage ; 
it  places  in  the  hands  of  the  President  and 
his  agents,  the  power  to  mould  the  future 
character  of  the  community  ;  and  it  author 
izes  no  legislation  which  is  not  subject,  di 
rectly  or  indirectly,  to  the  control  of  the  fede- 


38  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ral  government.  The  only  non-intervention 
which  it  establishes,  is  the  permission  to  intro 
duce  slavery  into  a  district  where  it  was  before 
forbidden,  and  the  transfer  of  legislative  control, 
hitherto  exercised  by  the  representatives  of  the 
whole  people,  to  a  body  of  judges  appointed  by 
the  Executive. 

Secondly,  this  claim  of  absolute  sovereignty 
for  the  people  of  the  territories,  is  at  war  with 
our  whole  policy  from  the  beginning,  as  well 
as  with  the  most  vital  principles  of  just  gov 
ernment.  It  was  never  contemplated  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution,  nor  by  the  people 
of  the  States  who  ratified  it,  that  the  terri 
tories  acquired  under  it  should  be  placed  upon 
a  level  with  the  original  States.  On  the  con 
trary,  they  were  to  be  held  in  a  state  of  pupil 
age,  if  we  may  so  express  it,  under  the  con 
trol  of  Congress,  until  they  should  have  ac 
quired  population  and  stability  enough  to  man 
age  their  affairs  for  themselves.  The  idea  of 
"  squatter  sovereignty,"  that  a  few  accidental 
first-comers  should  determine  the  institutions 
of  the  future  State,  for  all  time,  was  one  of  the 
most  offensive  that  could  be  uttered,  and  was 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  39 

unanimously  condemned  by  the  great  states 
men  of  both  the  North  and  South.  They 
held,  that  if  the  whole  people  paid  the  expense 
of  territorial  acquisitions — whether  by  money  or 
blood — if  they  were  taxed  for  the  support  of 
their  provisional  governments  ;  if  they  were 
liable  for  their  defense  against  the  aggressions 
of  the  bordering  savages  —  then  the  whole 
people  had  also  a  right  to  a  voice  in  their 
management.  Taxation  and  representation 
must  go  together,  said  the  Democracy ;  and 
this  principle,  we  attest,  is  an  older  and  bet 
ter  one  than  the  miserable  subterfuge  of  "  non 
intervention,"  by  which  the  demagogues  of 
Congress  hope  to  supplant  it.  "  Non-inter 
vention  !"  forsooth,  which  means  that  the  peo 
ple  of  the  States  shall  bear  all  the  burdens  of  the 
territories,  but  have  no  power  to  protect  them 
from  the  passage  of  injurious  and  infamous 
laws.  It  means  that  the  parent  must  be  re 
sponsible  for  all  the  debts  and  deeds  of  his 
child,  and  yet  be  divested  of  all  the  authority 
of  a  parent.  It  means,  in  short,  that  the  per 
petrators  of  the  iniquity  wanted  some  delu 
sive  pretext,  and  that  "  non-intervention," 


40  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

with  all  its  absurdities,  was  the  best  they  could 
find. 

Again  :  this  bill  in  the  method  of  its  passage, 
nullified  another  fundamental  principle  of  rep 
resentative  government,  namely,  that  a  repre 
sentative  is  but  the  mouth-piece  and  organ  of 
his  constituents.  Does  anybody  believe  that, 
if  the  proposal  to  repeal  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  had  been  submitted  to  a  direct  vote  of 
the  people,  that  it  would  have  commanded 
anywhere,  north  of  Mason's  and  Dixon's  line,  a 
single  majority  in  any  district  or  township  in 
any  State  ?  Was  there  a  solitary  petition  for 
it  sent  in  from  either  North  or  South  ?  Was  a 
single  member  of  Congress,  who  voted  for  it, 
elected,  with  a  view  to  such  a  question  ?  Were 
not  the  tables  of  both  Senate  and  House 
laden  with  remonstrances  against  it,  forward 
ed  not  by  politicians,  nor  enthusiasts,  but 
by  the  most  sober  and  conservative  citizens  ? 
Did  its  friends,  when  challenged  to  do  so,  dare 
to  postpone  action  upon  it,  for  another  year, 
until  the  people  should  be  allowed  to  pass  up 
on  it  ?  Was  it  suffered  to  take  its  regu 
lar  course  in  the  progress  of  legislation  ?  No  ! 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  41 

— no  ! — no  !  And  yet  we  are  told  that  ours 
is  a  representative  government !  A  number 
of  men,  delegated  for  particular  purposes  to 
Washington,  possessing  not  a  particle  of  au 
thority  beyond  that  conferred  upon  them  by 
the  people,  neglect  the  objects  for  which  they 
were  chosen,  and  proceed  to  accomplish  other 
objects,  which  are  not  only  not  wished  by  their 
constituents,  but  are  an  outrage  upon  their  sin- 
cerest  and  deepest  convictions.  Can  we  call  them 
representatives  ?  or,  are  they  not  rather  usurp 
ers,  recreants,  oligarchs,  despots  ?  What  use 
is  there  in  popular  elections,  when  the  per 
sons  chosen  fancy  themselves  exempted  from 
all  responsibility,  and  go  on  to  act  in  the 
most  independent  and  arbitrary  manner  ?  It  is 
true,  they  may  be  dismissed  afterwards  for  their 
criminal  breach  of  trust,  as  the  barn-door  may 
be  locked  after  the  horse  is  stolen  ;  but  then 
the  mischief  is  already  done.  We  may  dis 
charge  a  clerk  who  robs  the  till ;  but  will  that 
restore  us  our  money?  We  may  punish  a  se 
ducer  when  he  is  caught;  but  is  that  a  recom 
pense  to  our  violated  honor  ?  Not  at  all. 
What  we  want  in  legislation,  as  in  other  trusts, 


42  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

are  honest  fiduciaries:  men  who  will  perform 
their  duties  according  to  our  wishes,  and  not 
in  pursuance  of  their  own  selfish  objects ;  men 
who  do  not  require -to  be  watched  at  every 
step,  and  whose  fidelity  does  not  depend  alone 
upon  our  ulterior  privilege  of  breaking  them 
when  they  have  done  wrong.  A  Congress  of 
such  men  would  be  little  better  than  an  assem 
blage  of  cheats,  and,  for  our  parts,  we  should 
greatly  prefer  the  rule  of  Nicholas,  or  Louis 
Napoleon,  to  their  heterogeneous  frauds  and 
oppressions. 

An  open  disregard  of  the  will  of  the  con 
stituency  is  always  a  grave  offense  in  a  popular 
government,  but  how  flagrant  and  unpardon 
able  is  it,  when  it  is  committed  in  furtherance 
of  measures  which  look  to  the  overthrow  of 
popular  liberty  ?  Had  the  Nebraska  bill  been 
comparatively  unexceptionable,  had  it  contem 
plated  some  great  and  useful  improvement  or 
reform,  there  would  even  then  have  existed  no 
excuse  for  the  haste,  the  violence,  and  the 
audacity  with  which  it  was  pressed  to  a  vote ; 
but  when  we  reflect  that  its  principal  object 
was,  to  repeal  a  salutary  ordinance  against 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  43 

the  diffusion  of  a  lamentable  evil,  we 
search  in  vain  for  words  to  express  our 
feeling  of  the  magnitude  and  malignity  of 
the  wrong.  For  nearly  half  a  century  those 
fertile  regions  of  the  West  had  rejoiced 
in  their  prospective  exemption  from  the 
outrages  of  slavery.  The  American,  and 
the  foreigner,  even,  who  rode  over  them,  felt 
his  heart  dilate  as  he  beheld  in  their  rich 
fields  the  future  home  of  an  advancing  and 
splendid  civilization.  He  could  already  hear, 
in  the  rustle  of  the  grasses,  the  hum  of  a  pros 
perous  industry ;  he  saw  magnificent  cities  rise 
on  the  borders  of  the  streams,  and  pleasant 
villages  dot  the  hills,  and  a  flourishing  com 
merce  whiten  the  ripples  of  the  lakes ;  the 
laugh  of  happy  children  came  up  to  him  from 
the  corn-fields,  and  as  the  glow  of  the  evening 
sun  tinged  the  distant  plains,  a  radiant  and 
kindling  vision  floated  upon  its  beams,  of  myri 
ads  of  men,  escaped  from  the  tyrannies  of  the 
Old  World,  and  gathered  there  in  worshiping 
circles,  to  pour  out  their  grateful  hearts  to 
God,  for  a  redeemed  and  teeming  earth.  But, 
woe  unto  us  now,  this  beautiful  region,  com- 


44  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

pared  with  which  the  largest  principalities  of 
Europe  are  but  pin-folds,  nay,  compared  with 
which  the  most  powerful  existing  empires  are 
of  trivial  extent,  is  opened  to  the  blight,  the 
hopelessness,  the  desolation  of  a  form  of  socie 
ty  which  can  never  advance  beyond  a  semi- 
barbarism,  or  whose  highest  achievement  is  a 
purchase  of  the  wealth  and  freedom  of  one 
race,  by  the  eternal  subjection  of  another. 
Our  vision  of  peaceful  groups  of  free  laborers 
is  changed  into  the  contemplation  of  black 
gangs  of  slaves.  A  single  act  of  legislation, 
like  Satan,  when  he  entered  Paradise,  has  re 
versed  the  destinies  of  a  world.  The  fields 
seem  to  wither  at  its  approach  ;  the  waters  dry 
up  ;  threatening  clouds  obscure  the  sky  ;  and 

"  Nature,  through  all  her  works,  gives  signs  of  woe, 
That  all  is  lost." 

It  has  been  esteemed  the  special  privilege 
and  glory  of  this  young  republic  that  her  future 
was  in  her  own  hands.  Born  to  no  inheritance 
of  wrong  and  sorrow,  like  the  nations  of  the 
older  continent,  and  with  an  existence  as  fresh 
and  unsullied  as  the  fame  of  a  ripening  maid- 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  45 

en,  it  was  supposed  that  she  might  see  the 
states,  which  were  soon  to  become  the  chil 
dren  of  her  family,  growing  up  about  her  in 
prosperity,  love,  and  vigor.  She  could  watch 
over  their  cradles  and  keep  them  from  harm ; 
she  could  nourish  them  into  manly  strength ; 
she  could  form  them,  by  her  wise  and  tender  so 
licitude,  to  a  career  of  exalted  worth  and  great 
ness.  A  new  page  in  the  history  of  mankind 
appeared  to  be  opened — a  page  unblotted  by 
the  blood-stains  of  tyranny,  which  mark  the 
rubrics  of  the  past,  and  destined  to  be  written 
over  only  by  the  records  of  an  ever-maturing 
nobleness  and  grandeur.  This  was  the  am 
bition  of  her  fathers — of  those  who  laid  the 
beams  of  her  habitation  deep  in  the  principles 
of  virtuous  freedom,  and  bequeathed  to  her  the 
heroic  precedent  of  single-hearted  devotion  to 
justice  and  right.  But,  alas,  how  are  their 
hopes  prostrated  !  Ere  the  first  half  century 
of  her  youth  is  passed,  she  finds  herself  not  en 
gaged  in  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  for  the  pre 
servation  of  her  paternal  acres,  her  unshorn 
and  boundless  prairies,  from  slavery,  but  yield 
ing  them,  almost  without  reluctance,  to  the 


46  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

fatal  blight.  When  Niobe  saw  her  fair  sons  and 
daughters  falling  under  the  swift  darts  of  the 
angry  gods,  she  wept  herself  to  stone ;  but  the 
genius  of  America — whom  it  is  the  pride  of  her 
sculptors  to  represent  as  wearing  the  Phrygian 
cap  of  liberty  on  her  brow,  and  trampling  upon 
broken  chains  with  her  feet,  and  bearing  aloft 
the  aegis  of  eternal  justice — surrenders  her 
children,  without  remorse,  to  death.  She  be 
lies  her  symbols,  she  suppresses  her  inspira 
tions  ;  she  opens  the  gates  of  the  coming  cen 
turies  to  the  advent  of  a  remediless  bondage 

We  are  aware,  it  is  often  said,  that  slavery 
cannot  be  carried  into  the  territories  recently 
organized — that  their  soil  and  climate  are  not 
adapted  to  its  support,  and  that  the  sole  aim,  in 
removing  the  restriction  of  the  Missouri  compro 
mise,  is  to  erase  a  distinction  which  the  South 
regards  as  dishonoring,  and  unjust.  It  has, 
however,  been  sufficiently  answered  to  this, 
that  slavery  thrives  in  Missouri,  which  is  be 
tween  nearly  the  same  parallels  of  latitude, 
that  Illinois,  similarly  situated,  was  only  saved 
from  it  by  a  protracted  and  earnest  struggle, 
and  Indiana  only  by  the  immortal  ordinance  of 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  47 

1787.  But  it  is  useless  to  adduce  precedents 
and  analogies  in  the  face  of  current  facts.  The 
moment  in  which  we  write  witnesses  the  pro 
ceedings  of  assemblages  convened  to  keep  free- 
emigration  out  of  these  territories  by  force  of 
arms,  if  need  be.  Already  slaveholders  are 
on  their  way  to  establish  themselves  and  their 
"institution"  there,  nay,  they  are  already  in 
possession  of  some  of  the  choicest  parts  of  the 
soil,  and  are  resolved  to  maintain  it,  against  all 
comers.  Away,  then,  with  the  flimsy  pretext 
that  slavery  is  banned  by  what  Mr.  Webster 
called  "  the  laws  of  God  ;"  by  natural  position 
and  circumstances  !  These,  we  admit,  have 
much  to  do  with  the  prevalence  and  strength 
of  the  system,  but  they  are  not  omnipotent 
nor  final — they  are  only  accessory,  either  for 
it  or  against  it ;  and  the  will  of  man — his  de 
termination  to  abide  by  the  perennial  princi 
ples  of  right,  or  to  surrender  them  to  a  tempo 
rary  and  short-sighted  spirit  of  gain — is  what 
gives  character,  in  this  respect,  to  society. 
Nebraska  and  Kansas  will  be  slave  states  if 
slaveholders  go  there,  and  they  will  be  free 
states  if  freemen  go  there,  and  this  is  the  long 


48  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

and  short  of  the  matter,  let  the  soil  woo  and 
the  climate  smile  encouragement  upon  whom  it 
pleases.  If  the  American  people  do  not  now, 
on  the  instant,  rescue  those  lands  to  freedom, 
it  is  in  vain  that  they  will  hereafter  look  to 
nature  or  any  other  influences  for  their  salva 
tion. 

We  are,  indeed,  so  far  from  being  persuaded 
that  it  is  not  meant  to  take  slavery  into  our 
new  territories,  that  we  begin  to  entertain  the 
conviction,  that  the  propagandists  of  the  South 
will  not  stop  even  with  the  territories.  It  is 
imputed  to  them  by  authorities  entitled  to  re 
spect,  that  they  cherish  a  policy  which  aims, 
not  merely  at  its  establishment  within  the  lim 
its  of  all  the  new  states,  but  at  the  consolidation 
of  it,  by  foreign  conquests.  We  know  that  a 
movement  has  long  been  on  foot  in  California 
for  its  legalization  there  ;  we  know  that  Texas  is 
considered  as  the  nucleus  of  three  or  four  slave- 
holding  sovereignties  ;  we  know  that  schemes, 
open  and  secret,  are  prosecuted  for  the  acqui 
sition  of  Cuba,  before  Cuba  shall  have  eman 
cipated  her  blacks,  as  it  is  alleged  she  intends 
to  do ;  we  know  that  eager,  grasping  eyes  are 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  49 

set  on  Mexico ;  we  know  that  a  Senator  has 
called  for  the  withdrawal  of  our  naval  squad 
ron  from  the  coast  of  Africa,  that  the  slave- 
trade  may  be  pursued  in  greater  safety ;  we 
know  that  another  Senator  has  broached  the 
recognition  of  the  Dominican  Republic,  with  an 
ulterior  view  to  its  annexation ;  and  we  are 
told,  that  overtures  have  been  made  to  Brazil, 
for  cooperation  in  the  ultimate  establishment 
of  a  vast  slaveholding  confederacy  to  the 
South.  Of  course,  some  of  these  designs  are 
still  in  the  bud  ;  they  are  not  participated 
in  by  the  judicious  men  of  any  section;  but 
the  remote  conception  of  them  should  be  moni 
tory  and  waken  us  to  vigilance.  It  is  one  of 
the  dangers  as  well  as  glories  of  this1  nation, 
that  its  plans  are  executed  with  the  rapidity  of 
magnetism.  A  thought  is  scarcely  a  thought 
before  it  becomes  a  deed.  We  scorn  delays  ; 
we  strike  and  parley  afterwards  ;  we  actualize 
the  dreams  of  the  old  philosophers,  and  impart 
to  our  abstract  ideas  an  instant  creative  ener 
gy.  The  fact,  then,  that  such  comprehensive 
schemes  of  pro-slavery  expansion  gain  admit 
tance  into  active  minds,  nay,  that  they  are  said 
3 


50  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

to  burrow  in  those  of  men  of  eminent  station, 
should  beget  a  timely  and  jealous  watchfulness 
against  their  least  beginnings. 

It  is  one  of  the  arrangements  of  Providence, 
by  which  it  tests  the  reality  of  our  virtue,  and 
punishes  the  want  of  it,  that  we  should  be  so 
insensible  to  joint  or-  corporate  responsibilities, 
and  yet  so  intimately  connected  with  the  tre 
mendous  good  or  evil  consequences  of  their 
infringement.  We  are  apt  to  suppose  that  the 
offenses  of  nations,  against  the  laws  of  integrity 
and  right,  can  be  laid  to  no  man's  charge, 
or,  rather,  that  the  criminality  of  them  is  dis 
sipated,  through  the  multitude  of  the  offend 
ers,  and  we  do  not  feel,  in  consenting  or  con 
tributing  to  the  commission  of  them,  that  we 
contract  any  degree  of  personal  guilt.  On 
the  contrary,  we  undervalue  them  as  offenses, 
and  even  laugh  at  the  thought  of  national 
sins,  as  if  they  were  chimeras,  or  the  bodiless 
and  impalpable  acts  of  one,  who,  as  the 
adage  expresses  it,  has  neither  a  body  to  be 
kicked  nor  a  soul  to  damn.  But,  measured  by 
their  actual  effects,  by  the  awful  reach  and 
deathless  vitality  of  their  workings,  these 


OUR   PARTIES    AND   POLITICS.  51 

national  iniquities  are  they  which  are  most  to 
be  struggled  against,  deprecated,  dreaded.    The 
evil    done    by    a    private    individual    spreads 
through  a  narrow  circle    only,   and  does   not 
always  live  after  him  ;  the  contagion  of  its  virus 
may  be  speedily  counteracted,  and  the  worst 
results  of  it  often  are  no  more  than  the  debase 
ment  of  a  few  other  individuals.     But  the  evil 
done  by  the  public  man,  which  is  sanctioned, 
by  a  corporate  authority,  which  gets  embodied 
into   a  wicked  law,  and   to    that    extent  be 
comes  the  deed  of  many,  is  augmented  and  mul 
tiplied,  both  in  its  criminality  and  consequences, 
by  the  number  of  wills  which  may  be  supposed 
to   have    concurred    in    its    commission.      Its 
powers  of  mischief  are  infinitely  increased  ;  the 
potent  enginery  of  the  state  is  made  its  instru 
ment  ;  its  blasting  influences  spread,  not  only 
through   a   single   community,  but   over  vast 
races,  and  travel  downward  to  the  remotest 
time.     It  may  arrest  the  movements  of  nations, 
paralyze  the  very  fertility  of  the  earth,  and  stun 
the  heart  of  humanity  for  ages.    The  vices  of  sin 
gle  men  are  the  diseases  by  which  they  themselves 
suffer  and  are  broken,  or  at  most  by  which  they 


52  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

communicate  disease  to  those  who  come  in  con 
tact  with  them ;  but  the  vices  of  states  are  a 
malaria  which  blisters  in  the  air  and  festers  in 
the  soil,  and  sweeps  away  millions  to  the  tomb. 
Oh !  how  much  of  good  may  be  done,  or  of 
evil  prevented,  by  a  little  timely  legislation. 
When  Tiberius  Gracchus,  traveling  through 
Italy,  to  join  the  army  in  Spain,  saw  how  the 
multitude  of  his  countrymen  were  impoverished 
and  their  fields  laid  desolate  by  the  existence 
of  slavery,  he  proposed  to  terminate  its  evils, 
and  scatter  the  clouds  of  disaster  that  had 
already  begun  to  gather  and  brood  over  the 
destinies  of  the  Roman  commonwealth,  by  a 
simple,  just,  and  practicable  law  which  should 
build  up,  in  the  midst  of  the  luxurious  Roman 
nobles  and  their  debased  slaves,  an  independent 
Roman  yeomanry.  He  perceived  that  the  pub 
lic  domain,  long  usurped  by  the  Patricians,  if 
appropriated  to  the  people,  would  prevent  the 
concentration  of  wealth,  and  stimulate  the  pride 
and  industrial  energies  of  the  almost  hopeless 
people ;  and,  had  his  project  been  carried,  he 
would  have  arrested  the  downward  career  of 
his  country,  and  perpetuated  for  centuries, 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  53 

doubtless,  the  early  Roman  virtue,  which  still 
seems  marvelous  to  us  in  its  dignity  and  force. 
But  the  designs  of  Gracchus  were  defeated  by 
his  murder ;  the  Patricians  triumphed  ;  the 
people  grew  poorer  and  corrupter,  till  they 
were  at  last  fed  like  paupers  from  the  public 
granaries  ;  alternate  insurrections  of  slaves 
swept  the  state  like  a  whirlwind ;  despots  like 
Sylla,  and  demagogues  like  Marius,  convulsed 
society  by  civil  wars ;  and,  finally,  the  tyrant 
Caesar  arose  to  reap  the  harvest  of  previous  dis 
tractions,  and,  as  the  only  salvation  from  pro- 
founder  miseries,  to  erect  on  the  ruins  of  the 
Republic  an  irresponsible  monarchy.* 

We  have  dwelt  upon  the  proceedings  of  the 
pro-slavery  party  so  long,  that  we  have  left 
ourselves  little  space  for  urging  upon  other 
parties  their  duties  in  the  crisis.  But  we  will  not 
speak  to  them  as  parties.  We  will  say  to  them 
as  Americans,  as  freemen,  as  Christians,  that 

*  This  historical  allusion,  suggested  to  the  writer  by  a 
perusal  of  Michelet'a  Roman  Republic,  has  occurred  also  to 
Mr.  Bancroft  in  his  splendid  essay  on  Slavery  as  the  cause 
of  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  Republic.  See  Bancroft's 
Miscellanies,  page  280,  "  On  the  Decline  of  the  Roman 
People." 


54  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  time  has  arrived  when  all  divisions  and 
animosities  should  be  laid  aside,  in  order  to 
to  rescue  this  great,  this  beautiful,  this  glorious 
land  from  a  hateful  domination.  As  it  now  is, 
no  man  who  expresses,  however  moderately,  a 
free  opinion  of  the  slave-system  of  the  South, 
is  allowed  to  hold  any  office  of  profit  or  trust 
under  the  General  Government.  No  man  can 
be  President,  no  man  a  foreign  minister,  no 
man  a  tide-waiter,  even,  or  the  meanest  scul 
lion  in  the  federal  kitchen,  who  has  riot  first 
bowed  down  and  eaten  the  dirt  of  adherence  to 
slavery.  Oh !  shameless  debasement — that  under 
a  Union  formed  for  the  establishment  of  liberty 
and  justice — under  a  Union  born  of  the  agonies 
and  cemented  by  the  blood  of  our  parents — a 
Union  whose  mission  it  was  to  set  an  example 
of  republican  freedom,  and  commend  it  to  the 
panting  nations  of  the  world — we  freemen  of 
the  United  States  should  be  suffocated  by  poli 
ticians  into  a  silent  aquiescence  with  despotism ! 
That  we  should  not  dare  to  utter  the  words  or 
breathe  the  aspirations  of  our  fathers,  or  pro 
pagate  their  principles,  on  pain  of  ostracism 
and  political  death  !  Just  Heaven  !  into 


OUR   PARTIES    AND    POLITICS.  55 

what  depths  of  infamy  and  insensibility  have 
we  fallen ! 

We  repeat,  that  until  the  sentiment  of  slavery 
is  driven  back  to  its  original  bounds,  to  the 
states  to  which  it  legitimately  belongs,  the  peo 
ple  of  the  North  are  vassals.  Yet  their  emanci 
pation  is  practicable,  if  not  easy.  They  have 
only  to  evince  a  determination  to  be  free,  and 
they  are  free.  They  are  to  discard  all  past 
alliances,  to  put  aside  all  present  fears,  to  dread 
no  future  coalitions,  in  the  single  hope  of  car 
rying  to  speedy  victory  a  banner  inscribed  with 
these  devices  : — THE  REPEAL,  OF  THE  FUGITIVE 
SLAVE  LAW — THE  RESTORATION  OF  THE  MIS 
SOURI  COMPROMISE — No  MORE  SLAVE  STATES 
— No  MORE  SLAVE  TERRITORIES — THE  HOME 
STEAD  FOR  FREE  MEN  ox  THE  PUBLICLANDS. 
SEPTEMBER,  1854. 

It  is  proper  to  add,  to  render  the  views  of 
this  article  complete,  that  the  multiplied  out 
rages  and  aggressions  of  the  Slavery  Party,  have 
compelled  a  fusion  of  the  more  honest  and  con 
scientious  adherents  of  the  old  parties,  into  a 
new  party  called  the  Republican,  which  has  not 


56  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

adopted  the  standard  of  principles  we  have  re 
commended  in  the  last  paragraph,  but  satisfied 
itself  with  the  simple  device  of  no  more  Slave 
Territories  and  no  more  Slave  States.  That  is 
sufficient  —  and  the  standard-bearer  who  has 
been  selected  to  conduct  its  fortunes,  during  the 
next  presidential  campaign,  is  Fremont,  the  ad 
venturous  Pathfinder  of  the  Kocky  Mountains, 
and  the  gallant  conqueror  and  liberator  of  Cali 
fornia. 
JULY,  1856. 


THE   VESTIGES   OF  DESPOTISM  * 

WE  remember,  in  crossing  the  British  Chan 
nel  once,  that  we  had  taken  with  us  an  odd 
number  of  Punch,  to  while  away  the  tedious- 
ness  of  the  passage.  On  landing  at  Boulogne, 
it  was  crammed  into  a  side  pocket  for  safety, 
but  the  gendarme,  who  inspected  travelers' 
luggage,  seeing  the  paper,  tore  it  into  a  thou 
sand  pieces  before  our  face,  looking  as  fierce  as 
a  pandoor  all  the  time,  and  repeating,  "  11  est 
dcfendu,  monsieur  /"  It  seemed  that  Punch  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  drawing  a  small  man  with 
a  big  nose,  which  Louis  Napoleon  took  for  him 
self — this  was  before  he  and  Victoria  shook 
hands  and  kissed — and  he  avenged  the  indig 
nity  by  excluding  Punch  from  the  republic. 
Again,  subsequently,  on  entering  Vienna,  we 
had  a  London  Morning  Chronicle  sequestered  in 

*  It  is  proper  to  remark,  in  order  to  explain  some  allu 
sions  at  the  close,  that  this  article  was  suggested  by  the 
violent  abuse  which  followed  upon  the  publication  of  the 
foregoing  article,  in  Putnam's  Magazine. 
3* 


58  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  same  manner  because  it  contained  some 
account  of  the  progress  of  Kossuth  in  the  Uni 
ted  States  ;  and  a  friend  of  ours,  not  long  after, 
crossing  the  Po,  from  Austrian  Italy  into  the 
Estates  of  the  Church,  had  his  Bible  taken 
away,  though  copies  of  Voltaire's  naughty 
Candide,  and  Byron's  naughtier  Don  Juan, 
were  left  untouched  in  his  carpet-bag. 

These  were  specimens  of  European  despot 
ism,  and  we  thanked  God  that  no  such  petty 
interferences  with  the  rights  of  men  were  per 
mitted  in  our  own  dear  land  beyond  the  sea. 
A  man,  we  said  to  ourselves  proudly,  may  read 
what  he  pleases  there,  never  saying,  "  by  your 
leave,"  to  any  emperor,  priest,  or  catchpoll  of 
them  all.  The  press  is  free,  opinion  is  free,  lo 
comotion  is  free ;  and  the  wayfarer,  though  a 
stranger,  may  think  his  own  thoughts,  say  his 
own  say,  and  be  happy  or  miserable,  as  he 
likes,  without  let  or  molestation  from  his  neigh 
bors  or  the  government.  Hail  Columbia  !  we 
exclaimed,  in  a  fit  of  patriotic  enthusiasm; 
home  of  the  exile,  asylum  of  the  oppressed,  re 
fuge  of  the  gagged  and  persecuted,  etc.,  etc., 
etc.  "  Where  the  free  spirit  of  mankind,  at 


THE    VESTIGES    OF    DESPOTISM.  59 

length,  throws  its  last  fetters  off;"  where  a 
boundless  field  is  open  for  every  seed  of  truth 
to  germinate;  where  an  unlimited  career  is 
proffered  to  the  excursions  of  the  mind  ;  \vhere 
no  tyrant,  no  creed,  no  church  lays  its  heavy 
interdict  upon  the  growth  of  human  thought ; 
Hail,  thou  latest  born  of  time ;  mighty  in  thy 
youth  ;  chainless  and  unchained  ;  "  gleaming 
in  the  blaze  of  sunrise  when  earth  is  wrapped 
in  gloom."  Oh,  mayest  thou  long  be  proud 
and  worthy  of  thy  glorious  dower ! 

But  calmer  reflection  taught  us  to  inquire, 
after  a  time,  whether  our  patriotism,  taking 
the  bit  in  its  mouth,  had  not  been  running 
away  with  our  reason.  Is  it  true,  we  asked,  that 
there  is  no  despotism  in  America?  Have  we 
no  authorities,  which  take  the  control  of  opin 
ion,  and  assume  to  be  infallible  ?  Are  there  no 
institutions,  no  tribunals,  no  self-constituted 
judges,  which  impose  injurious  restraints  upon 
the  freedom  of  thought  ?  Have  we  extinguish 
ed  the  spirit  and  habit  of  persecution  along 
with  its  outward  symbols — the  rack,  the  stake, 
the  dungeon  and  the  prison-house?  We  an 
swered  ourselves  in  this  wise  :  We  do  not,  it 


60  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

must  be  confessed,  resort  to  the  same  compul 
sory  methods  against  the  human  understanding 
as  obtained  in  former  ages,  and  still  obtain, 
in  some  countries.  We  do  not  stretch  the 
limbs  of  men  on  instruments  of  torture,  be 
cause  they  refuse  to  conform  to  this  or  that 
standard  of  incomprehensible  dogmas  ;  we  do 
not  pillory  our  poor  De  Foes,  for  the  crime 
of  writing  candidly  on  public  affairs,  nor  im 
prison  our  humble  Bunyans  for  proclaiming 
the  gospel  in  the  streets  ;  we  do  not  bury  our 
statesmen  under  the  sea  as  they  do  in  Naples  ; 
we  do  not  banish  our  most  illustrious  artists 
and  poets,  because  they  are  liberals,  to  the  wild 
swamps  of  Cayenne,  as  they  do  in  France  :  all 
this  must  be  confessed,  and  it  must  be  con 
fessed,  too,  that  these  are  noble  advantages  to 
have  achieved  over  the  spirit  of  intolerance. 
No  one  can  over-estimate  their  worth  and  glory. 
They  are  priceless  victories  won  from  the  old 
empire  of  darkness.  They  lift  us  into  a  secu 
rity  and  elevation  which  baffle  for  ever  the 
malice  of  a  whole  infernal  brood  of  serpents, 
who  may  now  hiss  about  the  rock  of  our  re 
treat,  but  cannot  sting  us  to  death. 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  61 

Yet  it  appears  upon  minuter  consideration, that 
if  the  advanced  civilization  of  our  country  rejects 
the  grosser  applications  of  force  by  which  opin 
ion  was  wont  to  be  controlled,  there  are  others 
which  are  not  entirely  discontinued.  A  less 
barbarous,  a  more  refined  tyranny  is  compatible 
with  this  general  sense  of  propriety  and  justice. 
There  are  chains  which  men  forge  for  their  fel 
lows,  that  fret  and  cut  their  souls,  if  they  do 
not  canker  their  bodies.  There  are  inquisitions 
of  obloquy  and  hatred  which  may  succeed  to 
inquisitions  of  the  fagot  and  flame.  There  is 
a  moral  Coventry  almost  as  humiliating  and  op 
pressive  as  the  stern  solitude  of  the  dungeon. 
The  spirit  of  bigotry  may  survive  the  destruc 
tion  of  its  carnal  weapons ;  despotism  may  re 
tain  its  instincts,  and  give  vigorous  signs  of 
vitality,  long  after  the  sword  shall  have  been 
wrenched  from  its  grasp  ;  and  the  fires  of  hell 
may  burn  in  the  eyes  of  bigotry  when  they  have 
already  ceased  to  burn  upon  its  altars.  For 
what  is  the  essential  and  distinctive  characteris 
tic  of  despotism  ?  Not  its  outward  instruments, 
— its  Bastiles,  its  gibbets,  its  bayonets,  its 
knouts,  and  its  thumb-screws — but  its  animat- 


62  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

ing  purpose.  It  is  the  disposition  to  suppress 
the  free  formation  and  publication  of  opinion, 
by  other  means  than  those  by  which  the  mind 
is  logically  moved — by  other  influences  than 
motives  addressed  to  the  understanding,  the 
reason,  and  the  better  feelings  of  the  heart. 
Wherever  a  man's  bread  is  taken  away  because 
he  votes  with  this  party  or  that,  wherever  he 
is  denounced  to  public  odium  because  of  the 
heterodoxy  of  his  honest  sentiments,  wherever 
moral  turpitude  is  imputed  to  him  on  account 
of  his  speculative  errors,  wherever  he  is  in  ter 
ror  of  the  mob  on  any  account,  wherever  the 
inveteracy  of  public  prejudice  compels  him  to 
remain  silent  altogether,  or  to  live  a  life  of  per 
petual  hypocrisy,  wherever  his  sincere  convic 
tions  can  not  be  disclosed  and  promulged  foi\ 
fear  of  personal  discomfiture  and  annoyance, 
wherever  even  a  limit  is  fixed  to  the  progress 
of  research,  there  despotism  flourishes,  with 
more  or  less  strength,  and  only  needs  the  con 
currence  of  circumstances  to  be  nursed  into 
muscular  violence  and  fury. 

Now,  as  we  have  said,  it  seems  to  us  that, 
tried  by  this  test,  we  have  despotisms  in  the 


THE    VESTIGES   OF    DESPOTISM.  63 

United  States,  just  as  they  have  elsewhere,  and, 
that  with  all  our  advances  in  liberality  of  which 
we  justly  boast,  wre  come  short  in  practice  of 
the  brilliant  ideal  of  our  institutions.  We  have 
not  attained  to  a  genuine  and  universal  liberty 
— (we  will  not  say  tolerance,  because  that  word 
is  borrowed  from  an  age  when  freedom  was  sup 
posed  to  be  a  boon  and  not  a  right) — and  we 
fail  not  in  one  or  two,  but  in  many  respects. 
In  the  Church,  in  the  State,  in  the  popular 
meeting,  and  in  the  more  private  relations  of 
society,  we  often  surround  ourselves  with  need 
less  barriers,  we  build  walls  of  separation  be 
tween  ourselves  and  the  great  realms  of  intelli 
gence  yet  unexplored,  and  we  paralyze  those 
intellectual  energies  which  are  our  only  instru 
ments  for  exploring  them,  the  only  tools  for 
working  the  golden  mines  of  truth. 

In  the  first  place,  we  cannot  but  consider  a 
large  number  of  our  ecclesiastical  organizations 
as  so  many  restraints  upon  the  freedom  of  the 
mind.  Founded  upon  creeds  which  admit  of 
no  possibility  of  truth  beyond  their  own  for 
mulas,  they  discourage  inquiry  in  the  largest 
and  most  important  domains  of  thought.  Kant, 


64  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  great  German  philosopher,  in  one  of  his 
valuable  minor  writings,  discussing  the  ques 
tion  whether  any  association  is  justified  in  bind 
ing  itself  to  certain  immutable  articles  of  faith, 
in  order  to  exercise  a  perpetual  and  supreme 
guardianship  over  its  members,  and  indirectly 
through  them  over  the  people,  contends  that  a 
compact  of  this  kind,  entered  into,  not  as  a  sim 
ple  bond  of  union  for  the  interchange  of  com 
mon  sentiments,  but  with  a  view  to  conclude 
the  human  race  from  further  enlightenment,  is  a 
crime  against  humanity,  whose  highest  destina 
tion  consists  emphatically  in  intellectual  pro 
gress.  "  A  combination,"  says  he,  "  to  main 
tain  an  unalterable  religious  system,  which  no 
man  is  permitted  to  call  in  doubt,  would,  even 
for  the  term  of  one  man's  life,  be  wholly  intoler 
able.  It  would  be,  as  it  were,  to  blot  out 
one  generation  in  the  progress  of  the  human 
species  towards  a  better  condition  ;  to  render 
it  barren  and  hence  noxious  to  posterity."  This 
conduct,  in  the  religious  world,  proceeds  upon 
the  assumption  that  our  knowledge  of  divine 
things  cannot  advance  like  our  knowledge  of 
natural  things ;  that  the  first  investigators  of 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  65 

the  Scriptures  exhausted  their  contents,  and 
that  nothing  is  left  for  those  that  come  after 
them,  but,  as  Johnson  says  of  the  followers  of 
Shakespeare,  to  new-name  their  characters  and 
repeat  their  phrases.  But  does  this  view  do 
justice  to  the  sacred  word  ?  Granting  that  its 
leading  principles  may  be  easily  discerned — a 
thing  difficult  to  grant  in  the  face  of  two  hun 
dred  conflicting  sects,  each  of  which  finds  its 
support  and  nutriment  in  the  same  pages  ;  for, 
as  Sir  William  Hamilton  is  fond  of  quoting, 

"  This  is  the  book  where  each  his  dogma  seeks, 
And  this  the  book  where  each  his  dogma  finds,"  * 

— we  must  still  suppose,  that  a  revelation  from 
the  Infinite  will  contain  infinite  resources  of 
truth.  Neither  its  alleged  origin,  which  is  from 
the  perfect  God,  nor  its  alleged  destiny,  \vhich 
is  the  final  redemption  of  mankind  from  error, 
will  allow  us  for  a  moment  to  treat  it  as  an  or 
dinary  message,  soon  told,  and  as  speedily  com 
prehended.  It  must  conceal  inexhaustible 
riches,  or  not  be  what  it  purports  ;  while  to 
suppose  it  to  be  what  it  purports,  and  yet  to 

*  "  Hie  liber  est  in  quo  quaerit  sua  dogmata  quisque, 
Invenit,  et  pariter  dogmata  quisque  sua." 


66  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

attempt  to  inclose  its  treasures  in  the  frail  and 
ricketty  caskets  of  words  which  men  devise,  is 
an  enterprise  for  pouring  the  ocean  into  a 
quart-pot,  or  for  bottling  the  air  of  the  whole 
heavens  in  one's  private  cellar.  Nor  is  the  at 
tempt  less  pernicious  than  it  is  absurd  :  for  it 
erects  each  little  consistory  into  a  separate 
popedom,  issuing  its  infallible  decrees  and  de 
nouncing  its  interdicts  with  all  the  arrogance 
of  its  Roman  prototype.  As  an  inevitable  con 
sequence,  two  things  result ;  firstly,  that  the 
supreme  control  of  the  religious  sentiment  of 
nations  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  priesthood, 
who  are  conservative  by  position  and  training, 
— and,  secondly,  that  the  energies  of  the 
churches  are  absorbed  in  controversy  or  secta 
rian  propagation,  at  the  expense  of  a  free  and 
earnest  inquiry  after  new  truth,  and  the  culture 
of  the  more  genial  and  hopeful  feelings.  The 
history  of  our  American  sects,  for  instance,  is 
an  almost  unbroken  record  of  fierce  and  bigoted 
disputes.  New  England  has  been  a  kind  of 
theological  Golgotha,  and  the  fields  are  covered 
with  battered  skulls.  The  clergy  have  been 
the  ruling  powers  there,  and  the  people  have 


THE    VESTIGES   OF    DESPOTISM.  67 

dared  to  laugh  only  with  the  consent  of  the 
deacons.  We  are  aware  that  this  aspect  of 
things  has  materially  changed  of  late  years; 
we  know,  also,  what  inappreciable  services  the 
churches  have  otherwise  rendered  to  society  ; 
but  we  must  not  forget,  in  the  midst  of  our 
ready  gratitude  for  these,  how  many  of  them, 
by  means  of  their  creeds,  and  the  terrors  of 
their  forms  and  excommunications,  still  hang 
as  an  incubus  upon  the  minds  and  consciences 
of  their  adherents.  Nor  upon  them  alone,  but 
upon  many  others — even  upon  those  who  do 
not  professedly  wear  their  colors.  They  too 
often  terrify  the  ardent  reformer,  whose  bright 
hopes  they  change  by  the  magic  of  fear  into 
dread  spectres ;  they  too  often  arrest  the  up 
lifted  arm  of  science  when  it  would  strike  from 
the  rock,  or  open  out  from  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  some  precious  fountain  of  use  ; — and  they 
too  often  array  themselves  on  the  side  of  effete 
traditions  and  mouldy  abuses,  when  they  should 
be  pressing  forward  under  the  ever-living  in 
spirations  of  hope  and  freedom. 

It    is    said    that    Justinian,   when    he    had 
completed   the  compilation  of  his  Institutes, 


68  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

issued  a  decree  that  no  comment  should  be 
written  upon  them,  which  aimed  at  more 
than  a  sketch  of  their  contents,  or  a  tran 
scription  of  their  titles  ;  and  it  is  true  of 
most  sects  that  they  try  to  copy  this  im 
perial  and  arbitrary  example.  They  impose 
on  others,  as  exclusively  right  and  authori 
tative,  their  own  slender  selections  out  of  the 
vast  complexity  of  truths — the  few  pearls  they 
have  fished  out  of  the  measureless  sea — fancying 
that  they  have  banished  error,  when  they  have 
only  extinguished  the  independence  of  thought. 
Indeed,  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  attest,  ap 
propriating  the  figure  of  Mirabeau,  where  he 
compares  truth  to  the  statue  of  Isis  covered  by 
many  veils,  that  they  teach  their  followers  to 
lift  a  single  one,  whilst  they  fling  their  clubs 
and  battleaxes  at  the  heads  of  all  who  would 
remove  the  others.  "  Procul,  oh  !  procul,  csti 
profani!"  rings  the  chorus,  and  the  poor  auda 
cious  "infidel" — as  every  dissentient  is  sure  to 
be  called — is  handed  over  to  an  everlasting 
contempt.  Now,  what  chance  truth  has  in 
such  a  hubbub  it  is  needless  to  inquire. 

We  recognize,  secondly,  an  oppressive  exer- 


THE    VESTIGES   OF   DESPOTISM.  69 

else  of  despotic  power,  in  the  conduct  of 
political  parties,  both  in  respect  to  the 
violence,  and  bitterness  of  their  hatreds,  and 
the  relentless  proscriptions  which  crown  their 
victories.  The  former  are,  perhaps,  not  to  be 
avoided  in  the  present  imperfect  state  of  en 
lightenment  and  Christianity;  but  the  second 
are  wholly  indefensible  anywhere,  and  especially 
in  a  republican  society.  The  primary,  essen 
tial,  distinctive  right  of  man,  in  a  free  state, 
which  rests  upon  popular  choice,  is  the  right 
of  election,  and  to  assail  that  right,  by  direct  or 
indirect  means,  by  force  of  arms  or  by  the  ab 
straction  from  one  of  his  subsistence,  is  treason 
against  the  fundamental  principles  of  demo 
cracy — it  is  a  Use-majeste  done  to  the  people. 
Yet,  all  our  political  parties  justify  themselves 
in  a  wholesale  political  slaughter  of  their  op 
ponents,  whenever  they  come  into  power.  Like 
those  tribes  in  Africa,  which  sacrifice  a  hundred 
or  two  of  men  every  time  a  new  prince  ascends 
the  throne,  though  they  confine  the  immola 
tion  to  the  leaders  only  of  their  enemies,  our 
whigs  and  democrats,  on  the  occasion  of  their 
advents  to  power,  butcher  all  the  opposing 


70  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

chiefs,  and  all  the  subordinate  functionaries, 
down  to  the  drill-sergeant  and  the  sutler.  And, 
like  William  the  Norman,  when,  he  conquered 
England,  they  distribute  all  the  lands  and  mes 
suages  of  the  vanquished  to  their  own  set.  A 
regular  Domesday-book  is  opened,  and  the  fiefs 
and  holdings  are  parceled  out  with  a  coolness 
of  effrontery,  which  almost  persuades  us  that 
the  perpetrators  of  the  outrage  are  unconscious 
of  its  monstrous  meanness. 

This  is  an  injustice  which,  however,  works  the 
usual  effects  of  despotism.  It  degrades  the  char 
acter  of  all  who  are  concerned  in  it;  reducing 
political  life  into  the  sheerest  scramble  for 
spoils,  and  bringing  the  suspicion  of  mercenari- 
ness  upon  every  man  who  takes  office.  In 
either  aspect,  the  practice  is  signally  disastrous. 
By  debasing  the  standard  of  official  eligibility, 
it  places  in  high  position  men  of  corrupting 
and  pernicious  example,  and,  by  relaxing  the 
tone  of  public  controversy,  it  saps  and  under 
mines  the  integrity  of  the  people.  No  service 
which  government  renders  to  society  is  more 
important  than  its  influence  in  preserving  a 
sense  of  the  general  good  as  superior  to  in- 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  71 

dividual  interests.  .Indeed,  this  may  be  re 
garded  as  one  of  its  finest  functions — the  educa 
tion  of  the  masses  into  a  perception  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  general  over  particular  ends. 
Our  natural  impulses,  our  family  ties,  our 
necessities  of  business,  tend  towards  the  de 
velopment  of  a  comparatively  selfish  egotism, 
which  our  participation  in  public  affairs  tends 
to  counteract.  But,  if  that  participation,  in 
stead  of  being  animated  by  a  sense  of  devotion 
to  the  public  good,  is  converted  into  an  intense/ 
struggle  for  the  accomplishment  of  individual 
purposes,  we  lose  one  of  the  most  salutary 
restraints,  one  of  the  noblest  inspirations  of 
the  civilized  state.  We  resolve  society  into 
what  Hobbs  contended  was  its  original  con 
dition — a  state  of  war.  We  confirm  the  mul 
titude  in  their  narrow  and  low  ambitions  ;  and 
we  restrict  their  actions  to  the  petty  circle  of 
their  own  private  and  individual  concerns. 

Again ;  the  examples  of  really  great  states 
men  are  among  the  most  precious  and  inde 
structible  inheritances  of  a  nation.  No  matter 
how  great  their  services  in  averting  dangers 
from  the  commonwealth,  or  in  achieving  ad- 


72  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

vantages  for  it,  by  the  direct  exercise  of  their 
faculties,  these  cannot  be  compared  with  their 
indirect  utility,  in  presenting  to  the  people  a 
high,  manly,  dignified,  and  heroic  ideal  of  de 
votion  to  the  public  weal.  Their  life-long  ab 
negation  of  self,  their  cautious  wisdom,  their 
moderation  of  temper,  the  spectacle  of  their 
constant  preference  of  a  broad  and  ultimate  good 
to  local  expedients  and  temporary  triumphs, 
habituate  the  general  mind  to  the  contemplation 
of  lofty  ends  and  models  of  excellence  in  con 
duct.  Who  can  doubt  that  the  characters  of 
Washington,  of  Franklin,  of  Marshall,  of 
Madison,  etc.,  have  been  infinitely  more  valu 
able  to  us  Americans  than  any  battles  they  may 
have  won  in  the  field,  or  the  forum  '(  They 
have  been  so,  because  they  have  filled 
our  histories  with  pictures  of  a  disinter 
ested  virtue.  But  such  characters  are  not 
possible  in  public  life,  when  that  life  is  no 
longer  a  contest  of  great  minds  for  great  ends, 
but  a  pot-house  squabble — when  the  despotism 
of  party  machinery  excludes  from  public  ser 
vice  every  man  who  is  not  sufficiently  base  to 
stoop  to  its  arts,  and  to  roll  in  its  ordure.  Do 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  73 

we  not,  by  our  party  intolerance,  then  by  the 
proscriptions  which  tread  upon  the  heels  of 
every  success,  rob  the  community  of  a  twofold 
guaranty  of  its  progress,  of  the  services  of  its 
best  men,  and  of  a  high  moral  tone  of  public 
sentiment? 

But  this  leads  us  to  the  third  species  of  des 
potism  which  we  think  it  important  to  note, 
and  which,  instigated  by  the  bad  example*  of 
both  church  and  state,  may  be  described  as  that 
of  popular  opinion.  We  do  not  agree  with 
those  foreign  writers  who  represent  the  tyranny 
of  the  majority  in  this  country  as  absolutely 
terrific  :  they  have  exaggerated  its  effects ;  yet 
their  criticisms  are  not  without  a  tincture  of 
truth.  Compared  with  the  older  nations,  there 
is  a  larger  freedom  of  opinion  on  most  subjects 
in  this  country,  than  anywhere  else  on  the 
globe  ;  but,  compared  with  our  own  standards, 
or  the  ideals  of  our  institutions,  we  are  on  mani 
fold  subjects  lamentably  deficient.  It  is  natural, 
in  a  society  whose  stability  depends  as  much 
upon  opinion  as  upon  law,  and  more  upon 
opinion  than  force,  that  opinion,  like  other 

powers,  should  occasionally  play  the  despot. 
4 


74  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

What  we  complain  of,  however,  is  not  the 
habitual  watchfulness  of  the  public  mind  over 
public  interests,  and  its  chronic  tendency  to 
rectify  abuses,  or  to  avert  evil  by  an  instant 
insurrection,  but  the  excessive  resentment  of 
it  when  provoked.  It  is  that  unwillingness  to 
be  corrected  which  makes  its  thought  rather  a 
prejudice  than  an  ppinion — that  tenacity  with 
which  it  clings  to  its  customary  formulas — 
and  the  severity  with  which  it  often  resists  even 
the  slightest  departures -from  them.  We  com 
plain  of  it  because  it  erects  the  majority  into 
an  idol,  a  monarch,  a  tyrant,  and  begets  a  defer 
ence  to  it  which  is  almost  as  bad  as  any  savage 
superstition  or  loyal  sycophancy.  It  weakens 
the  very  springs  of  character  in  men,  and  then 
lords  it  over  their  weakness  with  an  irresponsi 
ble  violence  and  outrage.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  pro-slavery  sentiment  of  this  country,  as  it 
prevailed  a  few  years  ago — how  arbitrary, 
ferocious,  and  overwhelming  it  was !  Not 
merely  in  the  South,  where  the  vast  interests 
involved,  and  the  peace  and  security  of  society 
itself  justify  an  extraordinary  sensitiveness 
towards  all  impertinent  interference,  bul; 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  75 

throughout  the  nation,  where  no  such  exigen 
cies  of  danger  can  be  alleged.  In  the  most 
secluded  districts  of  New  England,  even,  where 
a  black  slave  was  never  seen,  and  thousands  of 
miles  away  from  where  they  are,  the  expression 
of  anti-slavery  views  has  been  almost  a  courting 
of  martyrdom.  The  feeling  dominated  the 
church,  the  senate,  the  popular  assembly,  and 
the  private  saloon.  Let  a  preacher  plead  the 
cause  of  the  negroes,  and  his  salary  was  stop 
ped  ;  let  a  newspaper  attempt  the  discussion  of 
the  subject,  and  it  lost  its  subscribers  ;  let  a 
representative  broach  it  in  Congress,  and  he 
was  gagged  and  excluded  fron  the  Committees, 
or  politely  invited  to  fight  a  duel.  Public 
meetings  called  to  consider  it  were  dispersed  by 
the  mob ;  petitions  to  the  Federal  Legislature 
against  it  were  indignantly  trampled  under  foot ; 
the  United  States  mails  were  feloniously  in 
vaded  in  its  behalf — while  the  agents  of  anti- 
slavery  societies  were  coated  with  tar  and 
feathers,  or  mutilated,  or  hung  upon  a  tree.  It 
is  true  that  all  this  has  been  since  changed,  but 
by  means  of  what  sufferings,  what  struggles, 
what  strenuous  and  long-continued  combats ! 


76  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Even  at  this  time,  the  pro-slavery  sentiment  is 
so  largely  in  the  ascendant,  that  no  man  of  the 
most  moderate  anti-slavery  convictions  can  hold 
office  under  the  Federal  Government — though 
that  government  represents,  or  ought  to  repre 
sent,  not  a  faction  or  a  locality,  but  the  whole 
people. 

De  Tocqueville  makes  it  an  accusation  against 
democratic  societies,  that  they  substitute  a 
many-headed  tyranny  for  that  of  a  single  man 
or  of  a  single  class,  and  the  history  of  the  anti- 
slavery  controversy  in  this  country,  to  our  shame 
be  it  said,  forces  us  to  confess  that,  in  this  re 
spect  at  least,  his  remarks  are  well  grounded. 
''Fetters  and  headsmen,"  he  exclaims,  "were 
the  coarse  instruments  which  tyranny  formerly 
employed  ;  but  the  civilization  of  our  age  has 
refined  the  arts  of  despotism,  which  seemed, 
however,  to  be  sufficiently  protected  before  ; 
the  excesses  of  monarchical  power  have  devised 
a  variety  of  physical  means  of  oppression  ;  the 
democratic  republics  of  the  present  day  have 
rendered  it  as  entirely  an  affair  of  the  mind  as 
that  will  which  it  is  intended  to  coerce.  Under 
the  absolute  sway  of  an  individual  despot,  the 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  77 

body  was  attacked  in  order  to  subdue  the  soul ; 
and  the  soul  escaped  the  blows  which  \vere 
directed  against  it,  and  rose  superior  to  the  at 
tempt  ;  but  such  is  not  the  course  adopted  by 
the  tyranny  in  democratic  republics  ;  there  the 
body  is  left  free  and  the  soul  is  enslaved.  The 
sovereign  can  no  longer  say,  "  You  shall  think 
as  I  do  on  pain  of  death,"  but  he  says,  "You 
are  free  to  think  differently  from  me  and  retain 
your  life,  your  property,  and  all  that  you  pos 
sess  ;  but  if  such  be  your  determination,  you 
are  henceforth  an  alien  amongst  your  people  : 
you  may  retain  your  civil  rights,  but  they  will 
be  useless  to  you,  for  you  will  never  be  chosen 
by  your  fellow-citizens,  if  you  solicit  their  suf 
frages  ;  and  they  will  affect  to  scorn  you,  if 
you  solicit  their  esteem.  You  will  remain 
among  men,  but  you  will  be  deprived  of  the 
rights  of  mankind.  Your  fellow-citizens  will 
shun  you  like  an  impure  being ;  and  those  who 
are  most  persuaded  of  your  innocence  will 
abandon  you,  too,  lest  they  should  be  shunned 
in  their  turn.  Go  in  peace  !  I  have  given  you 
your  life,  but  it  is  an  existence  incomparably 
worse  than  death."  There  are,  however,  two  fal- 


78  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

lacies  in  this — first,  in  supposing  that  the  social 
proscription  alluded  to  could  subsist  without 
passing  over  into  muscular  violence ;  and,  sec 
ond,  in  the  implication  that  the  soul  is  less 
likely  to  rise  superior  to  moral  than  to  physical 
persecutions.  The  experience  of  this  country 
has  proved  the  contrary  of  both.  It  has  shown 
how  the  virulence  of  prejudice  soon  runs  into 
lynchings  and  mob-law,  whence  its  peculiar 
dangers  ;  and  it  has  shown,  at  the  same  time, 
by  the  reactions  of  the  last  few  years,  how  ef 
fectively  the  most  overbearing  majorities  may 
be  resisted.  Yet,  as  we  have  already  acknow 
ledged,  there  is  a  basis  of  truth  in  De  Tocque- 
ville's  animated  charges,  as  might  be  amply  de 
monstrated  from  the  long,  arrogant,  insulting, 
and  rancorous  preponderance  of  the  pro-slavery 
sentiment. 

But  this  sentiment  has  grown  out  of  the 
existence  of  slavery  itself,  the  last  kind  of  des 
potism  to  which  we  shall  allude.  It  is  need 
less  to  remark  upon  its  character  as  such, 
beyond  the  statement  of  ttye  simple  fact  that 
four  millions  of  human  beings  are  held  as  pro 
perty,  which  settles  that  point  with  an  em- 


THE    VESTIGES    OF   DESPOTISM.  79 

phasis.  From  its  very  nature,  it  is  a  despotism 
of  force,  of  law,  and  of  opinion  combined — 
partially  mitigated  in  practice  by  humane  per 
sonal  considerations,  but  in  theory  absolute. 
It  is  administered,  for  the  most  part,  by  the 
whip ;  it  is  sanctioned  by  legislation  ;  and  it 
admits  of  no  scrutiny  or  discussion.  The 
master  and  the  slave,  therefore,  are  alike  do 
minated  by  the  system.  All  that  can  be  said 
of  it,  in  the  regions  where  it  prevails,  even  by 
those  most  deeply  interested  in  its  results, 
must  be  said  in  its  favor,  on  pain  of  peremptory 
banishment  or  assassination.  Indeed  the  illu 
sions  as  to  its  benefits  and  the  sensitiveness  as 
to  its  dangers,  are  both  so  extreme,  that  many 
a  slaveholder  allows  himself  to  read  no  book 
nor  to  hea^r  any  conversation  in  which  his  posi 
tive,  unqualified,  eternal  right  is  disputed. 
What  a  pitiable  and  insane  extravagance ! 
And,  if  he  were  consistent,  to  what  a  total  in 
tellectual  solitude  would  he  be  reduced,  in  the 
present  state  of  the  civilized  world.  He  would 
cut  himself  off  from  all  the  literature,  and 
science,  and  politics  of  mankind.  He  could 
read  no  magazines,  foreign  or  domestic  ;  the 


80  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

best  works  of  genius  would  be  closed  to  him  ; 
the  investigations  of  science  grow  infectious  ; 
and  the  debates  of  Congress  intolerable.  In 
fact  there  would  be  no  resource  for  the  class 
who  institute  this  moral  quarantine,  but  to 
imitate  the  habits  of  the  chigo,  as  it  is  described 
by  Sydney  Smith,  where  he  says  that  each  one 
sets  up  its  separate  ulcer,  and  has  his  own  pri 
vate  portion  of  pus. 

One  would  suppose  that  under  the  tremend 
ous  responsibilities  of  its  condition,  and  the 
embarrassing  perplexity  of  the  problem  it  is 
called  to  solve,  it  would  welcome  every  honest 
suggestion  likely  to  throw  light  upon  the  case, 
and  even  court  that  collision  of  opinion  out  of 
which  the  truth  is  gradually  struck.  But  it 
does  no  such  thing  ;  it  repels  every  approach 
as  an  insolence  and  an  invasion  of  its  rights: 

O 

and  blindly  surrenders  itself  to  the  darkness  of 
fate.  It  is  fortunate  that  all  slaveholders  are 
not  of  the  same  temper,  that  there  are  men 
among  them  too  liberal  and  intelligent  to  fall 
into  such  unreasoning  bigotry,  who,  on  the 
contrary,  study  with  an  intense  solrcitude  the 
bearings  of  their  social  structure,  and  eagerly 


THE    VESTIGES    OP   DESPOTISM.  81 

seize  upon  every  view  of  it  which  may  afford 
them  hope  for  the  future.  It  is  to  them  that 
we  look  for  the  wise  management  of  their  fear 
ful  trusts,  and  the  eventual  extinction  of  what 
they  must  confess  to  be  a  most  undesirable  re 
lation.  They  are  as  yet  sadly  overborne  by 
the  pressure  of  opinions  instigated  by  interest, 
but  will  soon  acquire  a  strength  which  will 
place  the  control  of  events  in  their  hands. 

Now,  in  respect  to  the  several  forms  of  des 
potism  which  we  have  briefly  enumerated,  we 
shall  not  dwell  upon  their  radical  inconsistency 
with  the  life  and  spirit  of  our  entire  polity;  for 
this  consideration  is  too  obvious  to  require 
pressing.  Nor  is  there  any  occasion,  now,  to 
show  the  inherent  weakness  of  any  cause,  or 
position,  which  shrinks  from  the  fullest  and 
fairest  examination.  But  we  cannot  forbear 
remarking  upon  the  deep  and  abiding  injury 
which  every  man,  who  is  unwilling  to  bring 
his  actions  or  his  sentiments  to  the  test  of 
scrutiny,  does  to  himself,  and  the  rest  of  man 
kind.  He  shuts  himself  and  society  out  from 
the  only  means  of  correcting  error  and  at 
taining  knowledge.  We  know  of  no  method 
4* 


82  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

of  arriving  at  the  true  relations  of  a  subject, 
but  the  frank  and  candid  discussion  of  it  in 
every  aspect.  The  time  is  past  for  believing  in 
the  existence  of  any  infallible  authority,  whe 
ther  pope  or  king,  whose  decrees  are  to  be  con 
sidered  the  final  arbitrament  of  truth.  There 
is  no  class  or  rank  of  men  to  whom  we  may 
Jook  for  a  fixed  and  irrevocable  standard  of 
what  it  is  right  to  think  or  proper  to  do.  Our 
individual  judgments  are  contracted,  uncertain, 
warped  by  prejudices;  and  the  more  profound 
ly  we  have  penetrated  into  the  complex  prob 
lems  of  life  which  solicit  solution,  the  more 
familiar  we  become  with  the  vast  extent  and 
variety  of  human  error,  the  more  distrustful 
we  grow  of  the  authenticity  and  correctness 
of  our  own  decisions.  Yet,  in  the  midsfc  of 
the  almost  overwhelming  multiplicity  of  crude 
and  preposterous  speculations,  in  the  wild 
chaos  of  conflicting  beliefs  which  storm  around 
us,  we  do  discover  that  the  general  mind  is 
slowly  eliminating  one  truth  after  another ;  the 
immense  laboratory  of  seething  and  fermenting 
thought  is  ever  turning  up  some  valuable  and 
brilliant  product ;  and  keen  research  and  grap- 


THE    VESTIGES    OF    DESPOTISM.  83 

pling  argument  secure  us  substantial  conquests 
from  the  realms  of  ancient  night.  Discussion 
— free,  open,  manly,  patient  discussion — is  the 
key  which  opens  the  treasure-chambers  of  na 
ture  and  revelation,  and  the  deep  human  soul. 
Like  the  cradles  of  the  Califbrnians,  it  sifts  the 
golden  metal  from  the  common  filth  and  dust. 
Summoning  every  variety  of  intellectual  instru 
ments  to  its  aid,  contemplating  things  in  all 
their  aspects,  exposing  falsehoods,  detecting 
fraud,  baffling  selfishness,  overwhelming  igno 
rance,  and  rectifying  hallucination,  it  opens  the 
way  for  the  slow  but  majestic  and  beneficent 
march  of  the  human  intellect  towards  the  mas 
tery  of  the  world. 

No  sensible  man  will  now  dispute  the  gigan 
tic  advances  which  the  civilized  races  have 
made  in  the  various  departments  of  mathemat 
ical  and  physical  science,  since  they  were  com 
mitted  to  the  hands  of  free  inquirers,  nor  wish 
to  revert  to  those  political  institutions  and  re 
ligious  scruples  by  which  their  progress  was  so 
long  fettered.  Would  it  be  less  absurd  to  de 
spair  of  the  speedy  success  of  the  moral  and 
political  science,  if  they  were  once  emancipat- 


84  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ed  from  the  despotisms  by  which  they  are 
checked?  The  very  triumphs  of  the  former 
sciences  are  a  ground  of  hope  for  the  rapid 
and  extensive  improvement  of  the  latter,  when 
these  shall  have  adopted  the  methods  and  be 
prosecuted  in  the  spirit  of  those.  "  The  prac 
tice  of  rejecting  mere  gratuitous  hypotheses," 
says  the  able  author  of  "  The  Letters  of  an 
Egyptian  Kafir,"  "of  demanding  facts,  of  re 
quiring  every  step  of  reasoning  to  be  clearly 
exhibited,  of  looking  with  perfect  precision  to 
the  use  of  terms,  of  discarding  rhetorical  illu 
sions,  and  mere  phrases,  of  scouting  preten 
sions  to  infallibility,  or  exemption  from  rigor 
ous  scrutiny,  are  all  required  as  indispensable 
in  physical  research,  but  cannot  possibly  be 
confined  to  the  department  of  material  philo 
sophy.  They  will  necessarily  be  extended  to 
moral  inquiries  ;  and,  supposing  that,  in  conse 
quence  of  social  proscription,  or  priestly  or 
political  tyranny,  these  latter  subjects  were 
totally  abandoned,  received  no  direct  examina 
tion,  were  exposed  to  no  discussion  for  even  a 
long  period,  were  withheld  (if  we  can  conceive 
it  possible)  from  the  very  thoughts  of  men, 


THE    VESTIGES   OF   DESPOTISM.  85 

for  half  a  century,  yet  the  influence  of  physic 
al  investigation  upon  them  could  not,  in  the 
end,  be  prevented.  All  the  correct  principles 
of  reasoning,  all  the  improved  methods  of  re 
search,  all  the  habits  of  comparison  and  dis 
crimination,  all  the  love  of  truth,  which  the 
pursuit  of  any  science  has  a  tendency  to  estab 
lish  or  engender,  all  the  impatience  of  vague 
ness,  and  obscurity,  and  assumption,  which  the 
prosecution  of  inquiry  superinduces  in  the 
spirit  of  men,  would  gather  round  the  prohibit 
ed  subjects,  ready,  like  hungry  lions,  to  rush 
on  what  they  had  been  withheld  from,  by  the 
bars  and  chains  and  bolts  of  social  or  political 
despotism." 

With  the  admonitions  of  that  paragraph, 
which  we  commend  to  all  in  the  United  States, 
who  wish  to  obstruct  the  advances  of  opinion, 
on  any  subject,  we  dismiss  our  theme. 

Before  quitting  it  entirely,  however,  let  us 
add  that  we  have  been  drawn  to  it  by  criti 
cisms  that  we  have  seen,  from  time  to  time, 
passed  upon  the  conduct  of  this  magazine.  A 
feeling  of  surprise  has  sometimes  been  express 
ed  that  we  should  mingle  with  our  lighter  en- 


86  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

tertainments  grave  and  thoughtful  considera 
tions  of  the  leading  political,  social,  scientific, 
and  religious  topics  of  the  day.  But,  surely 
they  who  express  that  feeling  can  neither  have 
studied  our  course  from  the  beginning,  nor 
have  thoroughly  digested  in  their  own  minds 
the  proper  aims  and  duties  of  a  first-class  peri 
odical.  It  was  never  our  intention  to  issue  a 
monthly  exclusively  for  the  milliners  ;  we  had 
no  ambition  to  institute  a  monoply  manufac 
ture  of  love-tales  and  sing-song  verses ;  and, 
if  we  had,  we  should  have  despaired  of  success 
amid  the  brilliant  successes  already  achieved 
in  that  line.  No  !  we  had  other  conceptions 
of  the  variety,  the  importance,  the  dignity, 
and  the  destiny  of  literature.  Our  thought, 
in  establishing  this  enterprise,  was,  and  it  still 
is,  that  literature  is  the  full  and  free  expression 
of  the  nation's  mind,  not  in  belles-lettres  alone, 
nor  in  art  alone,  nor  in  science  alone,  but  in  all 
these,  combined  with  politics  and  religion.  It 
seemed  to  us,  that  the  cultivated  men,  the  lite 
rary  men  of  a  nation,  are  among  its  best  in 
structors,  and  that  they  feebly  discharge  their 
function,  if  they  are  not  free  to  utter  their 


THE    VESTIGES  'OF   DESPOTISM.  87 

wisest  thoughts,  their  most  beautiful  inspira 
tions,  on  every  subject  which  concerns  the  in 
terests,  the  sensibilities,  and  the  hopes  of  our 
humanity.  Whether  they  pour  forth  their 
sense  of  beauty,  grace,  and  gentleness  in  strains 
of  poetry,  or  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  man  in 
sketches  of  travel,  or  bring  nearer  to  us  the 
countless  charms  of  our  landscapes  by  natural 
descriptions,  or  help  us  to  a  clearer  conception 
of  great  characters  in  biographic  notices,  or 
lift  the  disposition  into  cheerfulness  and  buoy 
ancy  by  outgushings  of  humor,  or  refine  our 
views  of  life  and  happiness  by  ideal  portrai 
tures,  or  expose  pretension,  arrogance,  and 
folly,  by  caustic  satire,  or  unfold  the  magnifi 
cent  vistas  of  science,  or  canvass  the  move 
ments  of  parties  and  the  measures  of  govern 
ment  in  the  light  of  great  general  principles, — 
they  still  belong  to  that  higher  priesthood, 
whose  ministrations  emancipate  us  from  the 
care  and  littleness  of  daily  life,  who  enkindle 
in  us  the  love  of  the  loveliest  things,  who  re 
veal  the  depths  of  our  spirits,  and  "  whose 
voices  come  down  from  the  kingdom  of  God." 
But  in  order  to  the  true  manifestations  of  this 


88  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

exalted  character,  a  free  scope  must  be  given 
to  the  action  of  their  genius ;  and  such  we 
trust  they  will  ever  find  in  the  pages  of  this 
Monthly. 

Figaro  says  that  he  once  conceived  the  pro 
ject  of  setting  up  a  journal,  and  that  when  he 
applied  to  the  government  for  the  necessary 
permit,  they  accepted  his  scheme  with  the 
warmest  applause.  "It  will  be  a  capital,  ex 
cellent  thing,"  said  they  ;  "  and  provided  you 
never  touch  upon  religion,  nor  politics,  nor 
private  society,  nor  the  affairs  of  the  opera,  and 
submit  each  article  to  the  decision  of  three  cen 
sors,  it  shall  receive  our  heartiest  concurrence  !" 

"Whereupon,"  adds  Figaro,  "finding  that  the 
best  name  for  it  would  be  Lc  Journal  Inutile, 
I  concluded  to  drop  the  enterprise."  As  for 
ourselves,  we  have  no  desire  to  publish  a  "  use 
less  journal,"  and  if  we  cannot  "say  our  say" 
of  what  is  passing,  or,  if  we  must  cultivate  the 
wonderful  art  by  which  politicians  talk  for  a 
month  without  saying  anything,  we  shall  imi 
tate  the  discretion  of  Figaro,  and  hasten  to 
other  fields  of  labor. 

NOVEMBER,  1854. 


OUR    FOREIGN    INFLUENCE    AND 
POLICY, 

THERE  are  fifty  thousand  villages,  more 
or  less,  in  the  United  States,  in  each  of 
which  an  oration  is  delivered  on'  the  4th 
of  July,  and  the  orator  who  delivers  it, 
when  he  comes  to  exhort  his  fellow-citizens  on 
the  greatness  of  their  responsibilities,  says,  in 
variably  and  solemnly,  "  the  eyes  of  the  world 
are  upon  us!"  It  would  seem  to  be  a  pretty 
general  conviction — among  orators,  at  least— 
that  the  people  of  the  universe  have  very  little 
else  to  do  than  to  watch  the  movements  of 
Brother  Jonathan. 

The  same  thought  is  implied  in  the  frequent 
remark,  which  we  hear,  that  it  is  our  duty,  as 
a  nation,  to  teach  mankind  the  way  of  repub 
lican  righteousness,  by  the  beneficent  influence 
of  our  example.  When  a  late  distinguished 
senator,  who,  with  all  his  genius  and  virtue, 


90  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

was  somewhat  given  to  commonplace,  elo 
quently  admonished  Kossuth  on  the  wicked 
ness  of  his  designs  against  our  national  virtue, 
he  observed,  with  manifest  seriousness  and 
sincerity,  that  there  was  no  need  of  our  in 
terfering  in  European  affairs,  because  Europe 
could  be  better  reached  by  "  the  silent  in 
fluence  of  our  great  republican  example." 

Now,  it  is  unpleasant  at  any  time  to  take 
the  conceit  out  of  a  man,  and  to  show  that  he 
is  by  no  means  so  stupendous  a  creature  as  he 
fondly  imagines.  Nor  is  it  any  more  agreeable 
to  run  counter  to  the  self-complacency  of  a  na 
tion,  or  to  feel  obliged  to  say  to  it,  in  all  honesty 
and  truth,  that  it  is  not  so  magnificent  a  swell 
as  its  fancy  paints  it,  or  its  flatterers  represent ; 
yet,  as  we  do  not  share  the  conviction  of  many 
of  our  countrymen  as  to  the  tremendous  and 
egregious  figure  they  cut  in  the  eyes  of  man 
kind,  we  are  forced  to  tell  them  as  much,  and, 
without  wishing  to  abate  one  jot  of  the  just 
estimate  they  may  have  formed  of  their  grow 
ing  power  and  greatness,  to  explain  frankly  the 
grounds  of  our  unpatriotic  heresy. 

We  do  not  wish  to  deny  the  almost  miracu- 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  91. 

lous  growth  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
in  all  the  elements  of  national  strength  and 
grandeur.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  as  proud 
as  any  Fourth  of  July  orator  can  be,  of  those 
beneficent  free  institutions,  which  have  raised 
us,  in  the  course  of  half  a  century,  from  com 
parative  nothingness,  into  the  first  rank  of 
nations.  We  glory  in  our  success,  not  simply 
because  it  is  success,  nor  because  it  flatters  our 
patriotic  instincts,  but  because  it  demonstrates, 
for  the  benefit  of  mankind,  as  well  as  of  our 
selves,  the  truth  and  benevolent  efficacy  of  the 
democratic  theory  of  government.  But  the 
question  before  us  is  not  what  we  are  in  our 
selves,  nor  what  we  have  proved  to  ourselves, 
but  what  we  have  accomplished  abroad,  the 
interest  the  world  takes  in  us,  or  more  par 
ticularly,  the  opinion  they  entertain  of  us  in 
Europe. 

The  United  States  are  variously  estimated 
in  Europe  by  different  classes  of  men.  States 
men,  by  the  necessities  of  their  profession,  have 
a  more  or  less  familiar  acquaintance  with  the 
workings  of  our  governments,  or  with  the 
statistics  of  our  physical  development.  They 


92  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

know  the  number  of  our  people,  and  the  spirit 
that  animates  them ;  they  know  the  general 
character  and  ability  of  our  rulers ;  they  know 
our  popular  ambitions  ;  but,  with  all  this,  they 
know  little  of  our  real,  solid  strength.  They 
under-estimate  our  integrity  as  a  nation.  Many 
of  them  momentarily  expect  that  the  Union 
will  fall  to  pieces,  or  that,  in  a  few  years,  our 
society  will  be  plunged  into  the  horrors  of  a 
servile  and  civil  war.  Others  allege  that  we 
are  immersed  in  the  pursuit  of  gain,  without 
inherent  unity  and  elevation  of  spirit,  and  too 
essentially  weak  to  stand  the  shocks  of  adver 
sity  and  war.  While  others,  again,  suppose 
that  the  insane  avidity  of  conquest,  which  they 
say  is  an  inseparable  characteristic  of  demo 
cratic  states,  will  impel  us  to  one  foreign  ag 
gression  after  another,  until  our  territory  shall 
have  become  too  unwieldy  for  management. 
Thus,  the  statesmen  of  Europe,  with  incon 
siderable  exceptions,  trained  in  monarchical 
theories,  distrustful  of  the  people,  beholding  in 
democratic  extension  only  a  lust  for  empire, 
and  not  a  peaceful  progress,  surround  the  fu 
ture  of  the  young  republic  with  dangers,  and 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND   POLICY.  93 

shut  their  eyes  to  the  real  significance  of  her 
history.  Can  they,  then,  be  said  to  know  the 
actual  condition  of  our  affairs  ? 

Unfortunately,  the  persons  we  send  abroad, 
as  representatives,  our  ministers  and  charges, 
who,  in  virtue  of  their  office,  come  in  contact 
with  the  political  classes,  do  nothing  to  enlarge 
the  opinions  held  of  us  abroad,  when  inadequate, 
and  nothing  to  correct  them,  when  erroneous. 
Selected  less  on  account  of  their  fitness  for 
their  places,  than  because  of  the  partisan  ser 
vices  they  may  have  rendered,  they  are,  for  the 
most  part,  men  conspicuously  unfit  for  their 
positions — ignorant  of  the  language  of  courts  ; 
ignorant  of  the  laws  of  good  manners  ;  ignorant 
of  the  history  of  diplomacy ;  ignorant  of  the 
commercial  relations  of  nations,  and,  of  course, 
ignorant  of  their  own  country.  Or,  if  they  be 
not  so  fatally  deficient  of  capacity  or  character  as 
we  have  described,  they  carry  abroad  with  them 
the  vilest  spirit  of  the  tuft-hunter  and  the  syco 
phant.  All  their  ambition  seems  to  be  to  cir 
culate  in  good  society ;  to  dine  with  distin 
guished  ministers,  and  to  hob-nob  with  princes 
and  dukes.  A  favor  from  a  king  quite  upsets 


94  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

their  understanding.  We  remember  to  have 
met  once,  in  Italy,  not  a  thousand  years  ago, 
an  American  ambassador,  whose  whole  talk  re 
lated  to  the  eminent  virtue  and  wisdom  of  the 
present  weak  and  perjured  king  of  Prussia, 
whom  he  extolled  as  a  pattern  of  every  do 
mestic  excellence,  and  a  model  among  rulers. 
No  court  lacquey,  with  a  red  embroidered  coat 
on  his  back,  could  have  cherished  a  profounder 
regard  for  that  monarch,  or  expressed  his  ad 
miration  in  more  unmeasured  praises.  Yet  this 
eulogist  of  royalty  was,  perhaps,  better  than  a 
predecessor  of  his,  who  had  befouled  his  lega 
tion  with  the  vices  of  the  debauchee  and  the 
drunkard.  He  was  an  exception,  it  is  true, 
and  regarded  by  a  majority  of  his  colleagues  us 
a  disgrace  to  the  nation  ;  but  one  such  exam 
ple  of  an  American  diplomatist,  in  the  course 
of  twenty  years,  spreads  more  prejudice  against 
us,  and  against  the  cause  of  republicanism,  than 
fifty  years  of  "  the  silent  influence  of  example" 
can  neutralize. 

Next  to  statesmen,  the  readers  of  the  more 
intelligent  books  about  the  United  States,  like 
those  of  Do  Tocqueville,  Chevalier,  Van  Reau- 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND   POLICY.  95 

mer,  and  Miss  Martineau,  acquire  some  know 
ledge  of  us,  and  our  concerns,  but  not  on  the 
whole  an  accurate  or  complete  knowledge. 
The  writers  of  those  works  we  believe  to  have 
been  honest,  they  conducted  their  inquiries 
with  a  desire  to  discover  the  truth,  have  stated 
the  results  fairly,  and  in  many  respects  have 
presented  faithful,  as  well  as  important  views, 
either  of  our  manners  or  policy.  De  Tocque- 
ville's  work,  in  particular,  is  characterized  by 
a  patient  study  of  facts,  and  fine  philosophical 
generalizations,  but  it  is,  after  all,  superficial, 
abounding  in  political  as  well  as  politico-eco 
nomical  mistakes,  and  inspiring  a  distrust  of 
democracy,  in  the  midst  of  all  its  apparent 
eulogies.  But,  if  these  were  more  satisfactory, 
they  could  do  little  towards  informing  public 
opinion,  against  the  host  of  others,  of  inferior 
calibre — the  Trollopes,  Marryatts,  and  Dickens- 
es,  whose  narratives  of  travel  are  little  better 
than  caricatures.  Where  one  copy  of  the  more 
dignified  and  stately  work  of  De  Tocqueville 
is  read,  thousands  of  Dickens's  "  Notes"  are 
circulated  to  counteract  it ;  or,  where  the  latter 
do  not  penetrate,  the  newspapers,  published  ia 


96  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  interests  of  despotism,  carry  their  slander 
ous  witticisms  and  lies.  For  the  press,  it 
should  be  remembered,  as  well  as  the  pulpit, 
and  all  the  other  instrumentalities  by  which 
public  opinion  is  formed,  is  under  the  control 
of  the  governments,  and  foster  an  unceasing 
and  an  unmitigated  hostility  to  whatever 
makes  in  favor  of  liberalism.  Everybody  has 
observed  how  vehemently  abusive  the  leading 
English  journals  were  towards  America  and 
Americans,  until  an  increasing  commercial  in 
tercourse  had  softened  the  asperities  of  the  two 
nations,  and  made  it  the  interest  of  both  to 
cultivate  more  friendly  feelings,  which  heaven 
strengthen  and  expand  !  But  there  has  been 
no  such  relenting  on  the  continent,  where  the 
gazettes,  that  are  allowed  to  speak  of  us  at  all, 
still  maintain  the  old  tone  of  banter,  ridicule, 
and  abuse.  There  is  one  of  them  in  particular, 
that  vile  panderer  to  aristocratic  assumption 
and  pride,  GallgnanVs  Messenger,  of  Paris, 
which  purposely  misrepresents  every  incident 
of  our  affairs,  and  every  trait  of  our  character. 
A  European,  who  should  form  his  opinion  of 
us  from  the  meagre  and  distorted  accounts  of 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  97 

this  source,  must  look  upon  our  society  as  in  a 
chaotic  and  savage  condition,  destitute  of  all 
the  higher  elements  of  civilization,  and  quite 
given  over  to  the  blackleg  and  the  cut-throat. 
Long  columns  of  murders  and  outrages,  such 
as  may  be  gathered,  by  considerable  industry, 
from  the  records  of  our  extreme  western  bor 
ders,  are  paraded  as  incidents  of  our  daily  life, 
alternated  with  the  fantasies  of  Mormonism,  or 
the  terrors  of  servile  insurrection. 

What  can  the  "silent  influence  of  example1' 
do  against  this  systematic  and  obstinate  per 
version  of  the  truth  ?  What  can  societies, 
which  know  little  of  us,  and  that  little  con 
veyed  to  them  through  discolored  mediums, 
know  of  the  practical  workings  of  democracy 
in  this  country  ?  Nor  is  there  much,  in  the 
conduct  and  character  of  Americans  who  tra 
vel  abroad,  to  improve  the  prevailing  miscon 
ceptions  in  Europe.  A  large  number  of  our 
citizens  make  the  world  acquainted  with  their 
persons,  not  always  to  our  advantage.  Many 
of  them,  we  are  happy  to  say,  do  no  discredit 
to  their  origin.  Our  young  artists,  and  literary 

men,  especially — some  of  our  clergymen,  and 
o 


98  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

here  and  there  a  merchant,  by  their  intelli 
gence  and  unobtrusive  modesty,  produce  the 
most  favorable  impressions.  They  circulate 
quietly  in  the  best  families,  and  by  the  infor 
mation  they  diffuse  as  well  as  by  their  man 
ners,  commend  their  country  no  less  than  them 
selves  to  a  kind  regard.  But  by  far  the  larger 
proportion  of  our  nomadic  tribes — commercial 
men,  generally,  who,  having  scraped  up  a  rapid 
fortune,  conceive  it  necessary  to  achieve  a  tour 
of  Europe — without  education,  or  refinement, 
or  clear  or  earnest  republican  convictions — by 
their  ridiculous  aping  of  the  extravagances  of 
foreign  fashion,  and  their  loud,  blatant,  vulgar 
parade  of  wealth,  utterly  repel  and  disgust, 
not  only  the  people  of  standing,  but  the 
common  people,  who  often  have  as  nice  a  dis 
cernment  of  what  is  true  and  becoming  as  the 
more  cultivated  classes.  They  are  also  almost 
universally  conservatives,  who  deride  or  affect 
to  deride  the  government  of  their  country,  pro 
fessing  great  admiration  of  the  methods  and 
doings  of  the  monarchies,  while,  in  every  dis 
cussion  of  the  vital  principles  that  distinguish 
between  despotism  and  democracy,  their  syin- 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND   POLICY.  99 

pathies  lean,  if  not  avowedly,  at  least  impli 
citly,  to  the  side  of  power.  Oh,  how  bitterly 
have  we  heard  the  leaders  of  the  great  eman 
cipating  movement  of  Europe  complain  of  this 
base  treason  of  the  Americans,  to  whom  they 
naturally  looked  for  support,  but  only  found  a 
mean  and  detestable  affectation  of  aristocracy. 
The  poor  fellows  had  read  our  constitutions 
and  laws,  had  heard  of  our  prosperity,  had 
caught  the  echoes  of  those  public  rejoicings  in 
which  we  boast  so  much  of  the  glories  of  re 
publican  freedom,  and  they  expected  to  en 
counter  in  every  native,  born  to  the  inheritance 
of  such  noble  institutions,  the  friend  of  uni 
versal  liberty.  Alas,  a  moment's  conversa 
tion  has  filled  them  with  astonishment  and 
dismay  !  None  of  us  forget,  we  presume,  the 
high  hopes  with  which  that  exalted  and  accom 
plished  man,  Kossuth,  came  to  our  shores, 
expecting  to  meet  in  every  man  a  soldier  of 
the  democracy,  by  which  he  had  been  redeem 
ed  ?  But  can  we  recall  some  of  the  incidents 
of  his  tour  without  a  blush,  deeper  than  the 
crimson  of  yon  decaying  maple  ?  Can  we  for 
get  the  low  abuse,  the  cold  contempt,  the 


100  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

shallow  compliments  with  which  he,  the  exile, 
the  patriot,  the  hero — after  being  feted  and 
extolled,  as  no  foreigner  ever  was  before — was 
allowed  to  return?  What,  though  he  loved 
his  country  too  well  and  sought  too  eagerly  to 
enlist  the  active  sympathy  of  others  in  her 
cause — what,  though,  in  his  burning  sense  of 
the  degradation  and  suffering  of  the  European 
masses,  he  would  have  raised  a  crusade  of  free 
dom  against  the  despots  of  the  world — could 
we  not,  on  a  calm  consideration  of  our  foreign 
relations,  have  respectfully  declined  his  invita 
tions,  or  discreetly  postponed  the  acceptance 
of  them  to  a  more  fitting  time,  should  a  more 
fitting  time  ever  come — without  joining  in  the 
hue-and-cry  of  the  oppressors  against  him, 
heaping  him  with  invectives,  ridicule,  and 
taunts  ?  Did  he  not  bring  to  us  as  vouchers 
of  his  sincerity,  and  as  appeals  to  our  regard, 
a  long  life  of  patient,  noble,  and  magnanimous 
struggle  against  wrong — an  eloquence  that 
eclipsed  all  ancient  and  modern  fame — attain 
ments  in  language  and  history  that  seemed 
exhaustless  in  their  variety  and  grace — and, 
more  than  all,  the  sad,  but  honorable  fact  of  his 


OUR   FOREIGN    INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  101 

exclusion  from  every  land  but  oar  own  and 
England  ?  Yet,  in  the  face  of  these  immortal 
titles  to  regard,  these  claims  upon  our  gener 
ous  indulgence  and  ardent  love,  there  were 
some  Americans  who  could  take  part  in  his 
systematic  revilement  and  misconstruction ! 
Need  we  wonder,  then,  that  a  similar  class 
abroad  pursue  a  career,  and  profess  senti 
ments,  which  bring  us  into  lasting  and  wide 
dishonor  ? 

But,  worse  than  the  general  want  of  infor 
mation  about  us  in  Europe,  worse  than  the 
latent  or  blatant  infidelity  to  their  principles  of 
Americans,  official  or  otherwise,  worse  than 
the  calumnies  of  Dickens,  Galignani,  or  the 
Times,  are  the  uses  which  the  upholders  of 
despotism  make  of  the  existence  of  slavery  in 
the  southern  portions  of  this  confederacy.  '  Its 
apparent  inconsistency  with  our  leading  politi 
cal  principles,  and  the  exaggerations  which 
prevail  in  regard  to  its  practical  evils,  enable 
them  to  depict  us,  one  and  all,  as  slave-drivers 
and  oppressors,  bent  only  on  the  pursuit  of 
gain,  to  which  we  sacrifice  alike  the  dictates 
of  justice,  the  restraints  of  self-respect  and 


102  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  promptings  of  patriotism.  Unwilling  or 
unable  to  apprehend  the  peculiar  structure  of 
our  government,  they  confound  all  the  inhabit 
ants  of  the  States  into  one  mass  of  miscreants, 
who  war  at  will  upon  humanity,  kidnapping, 
torturing,  outraging,  and  slaying  their  poor 
victims,  with  all  the  lust  and  none  of  the  re 
morse  of  tigers.  Behold,  they  exclaim,  the 
model  republic,  behold  democracy  in  prac 
tice,  behold  the  boasted  freedom  of  America, 
—  three  millions  of  human  beings  in  the 
dust,  while  their  free  and  independent  task 
masters 

"  Chain  them  and  task  them,  and  exact  their  sweat !" 

It  is  in  vain  that  the  leaders  of  the  liberal 
movements  try  to  explain  away  this  imputed 
disgrace  ;  in  vain  they  show  the  origin  of  sla 
very,  in  vain  they  state  its  intricate  connection 
with  the  vital  interests  of  society,  in  vain  they 
allege  the  fewness  of  those  who  are  implicated 
in  it,  in  vain  they  describe  it  as  an  exception 
and  an  anomaly,  while  they  point  out  the  be 
neficent  and  glorious  effects  w7hich  freedom 
has  wrought  for  us,  in  the  face  of  this  alleged 


OUR   FOREIGN    INFLUENCE    AND   POLICY.  103 

weakness — a  story  of  negro  oppression,  well- 
told,  will  scatter  their  declamations  to  the 
winds,  and  damage  our  repute,  through  large 
circles  of  influence,  and  over  long  periods  of 
time. 

There  are,  however,  one  or  two  checks  to 
these  disparaging  views,  which  operate  with 
some  force  in  Europe.  A  considerable  number 
of  the  common  people  acquire  no  small,  though 
perhaps  a  vague,  knowledge  of  the  United 
States,  from  the  correspondence  of  their  friends 
who  have  emigrated  hither,  and  who  write 
back  to  their  impoverished  relatives  of  their 
easy  success  in  the  life  of  the  New  World.  In 
crossing  the  Atlantic  on  one  occasion,  for  in 
stance,  we  saw  a  shabby-looking  German  on 
board  the  vessel,  who  had  been  ill  nearly  all 
the  voyage,  and  only  as  we  neared  port  had 
been  able  to  crawl  on  deck  to  snuff  the  fresh 
air.  Entering  into  conversation  with  him,  we 
learned  that,  some  six  years  before,  he  had  left 
his  fatherland,  to  settle  in  the  west ;  he  had 
contrived  by  his  labor  to  purchase  a  farm,  and 
to  stock  it ;  a  railroad  was  opened  near  his 
house,  and  now  he  was  returning  to  his  native 


104  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

village,  with  ten  thousand  dollars  in  bank,  to 
persuade  his  father,  and  as  many  of  his  neigh 
bors  as  he  could,  to  remove  to  the  land  which 
had  been  a  Golconda  to  him.  "  But  why  will 
you  not  remain  in  Germany,"  we  asked,  "  now 
that  you  have  the  means  to  live  ?"  His  reply 
was,  that  "  the  freedom  of  America  was  more 
to  him  than  its  opportunities  of  fortune.  He 
had  left  his  home  in  a  condition  not  better  than 
that  of  a  slave ;  he  returned  to  it  the  citizen 
of  a  great  and  noble  nation,  where  he  was 
eligible  to  the  highest  distinctions,  and  the 
equal  of  all  his  fellows,  universally  respected 
as  such.  Could  he  remain  in  a  rotten  despotism, 
where  the  alternative  of  his  personal  and  poli 
tical  subjection  was  civil  war  ?"  Now,  that 
man  was  a  missionary  of  republicanism,  spread 
ing  the  aspiration,  if  not  the  knowledge  of 
freedom,  and.  with  his  compeers  of  the  same 
stamp,  working  silent  revolutions  of  states, 
which  in  the  form  of  emigration  move  whole 
townships  to  their  exodus. 

It  is  evident,  at  the  same  time,  that  such 
men  rather  kindle  hope,  than  impart  knowledge. 
They  create  a  private  impatience  of  the  re- 


OUR  FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND   POLICY.  105 

straints  of  despotism,  without  communicating 
precise  intelligence  as  to  the  nature  of  repub 
licanism.  They  cannot  be  said,  therefore,  to 
instruct  or  form  public  opinion  ;  and  the  same 
thing  might  be  remarked  of  the  professed  re 
volutionists,  who,  though  they  have  read  our 
history,  and  caught  inspirations  from  the  great 
deeds  of  our  forefathers,  and  informed  them 
selves  of  our  subsequent  triumphs,  yet  inocu 
late  their  followers  rather  with  spirit  than  with 
knowledge.  One  is  often  surprised,  in  convers 
ing  with  the  liberals  of  Europe,  even  with 
distinguished  men  among  them,  to  discover 
how  little  they  really  know  of  the  genuine 
principles  of  republicanism,  how  much  of  their 
liberal  enthusiasm  is  a  recoil  from  oppression, 
mingled  with  wild  hopes  of  liberty,  and  what 
a  chasm  there  is  between  their  notions  of  what 
government  should  be,  practically,  and  our 
own  calm,  firm,  easy-working,  and  just,  scien 
tific,  political  system.  One  does  not,  however, 
infer  from  these,  the  unfitness  of  the  European 
liberals  for  freedom — (seeing  that  it  demon 
strates  their  unfitness  for  every  other  political 

state  but  that  of  freedom — for  how  can  such 
5* 


106  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

men  abide  absolutism  ?) — but  simply  the  vague 
ness  of  their  conceptions,  and  particularly  their 
want  of  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  our  in 
stitutions.  Had  they  studied  the  American 
example  more,  they  would  entertain  more  con 
sistent  and  enlightened  political  theories.  They 
would  have  been  saved  from  many  of  the 
vagaries  of  socialism,  retaining  only  its  scien 
tific  elements,  and  their  practical  attempts  at 
the  realization  of  freedom  would  not  have 
miscarried  with  such  signal  disaster. 

Four  splendid  exceptional  events,  however, 
in  our  foreign  intercourse  have  stamped  them 
selves  upon  the  memories  and  hearts  of  many 
in  Europe.  When  the  noble  frigate  the  Mace 
donian,  a  war  ship  no  more, 

"  Built  in  the  eclipse  and  rigged  with  curses  dark," 

but  a  messenger  of  love,  was  freighted  with  the 
generous  contributions  of  the  American  people, 
to  the  starving  people  of  Ireland,  a  thrill  of 
electric  joy,  passing  through  the  frames  of  the 
sufferers,  was  caught  and  carried  round  the 
globe,  as  far  as  the  deed  was  heard.  When, 
too,  the  inevitable  Jackson  extorted  from  lin- 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  107 

gering  France,  the  just  dues  of  our  citizens,  on 
the  single  condition  of  "Pay  or  we'll  make 
you,"  the  old  diplomats  of  Europe,  accustomed 
only  to  protocolling,  intriguing  and  postponing, 
raised  their  drowsy  heads,  to  ask  with  some 
astonishment,  "Who  is  this  impertinent  young 
genius  that  dares  to  talk  to  a  venerable  monarchy 
in  this  strain?"  So  also  the  able  reply  of  Mr. 
Webster  to  the  impertinences  of  Hulseman,  fell 
with  a  crash  among  the  mouldy  archives  of 
Vienna.  But  no  event,  we  suspect,  has  been  of 
more  efficiency  in  awakening  the  Old  World  to  a 
consciousness  of  our  existence,  than  the  prompt, 
decided,  and  glorious  act  of  Captain  Ingraham, 
when,  in  the  face  of  the  Austrian  fleet,  he 
threw  the  national  aegis  over  the  prostrate  form 
of  a  poor  Hungarian  exile,  and  pointed  to  his 
guns.  The  shout  of  Vice  la  Republique,  which 
circled  around  the  hiys  of  Smyrna,  was  echoed 
from  the  hearts,  if  not  the  voices  of  millions 
of  men. 

In  spite  of  these  occasional  impressions,  we 
cannot  but  think,  in  respect  to  the  mark  we 
make  in  Europe,  that  the  majority  there 
really  knows  little  about  us ;  that,  among  the 


108  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

conservative  classes,  we  are  grossly  and  will 
fully  misjudged;  that,  among  the  liberal  and 
popular  classes,  we  are  estimated  through  ex 
aggerating  mediums  rather  than  by  any  correct 
standard,  while  our  political  influence  is  only 
indirect  and  casual,  and  by  no  means  commen 
surate  to  our  power  and  station.  Those  patri 
ots  of  the  Fourth  of  July  stamp,  who  go  about 
like  peacocks,  admiring  their  own  prodigious 
tails,  are  hardly  justified  in  their  vanity  by  the 
actual  facts;  for  while  they  are  contemplating 
themselves  through  a  glass  of  compound  mag 
nifying  power,  the  world  is  looking  at  them, 
when  it  looks  at  all,  through  an  inverted  tele 
scope. 

It  is  a  matter  of  small  concern  to  a  man 
what  the  world  may  think  of  him  if  the  su 
preme  object  of  life  be  to  take  care  of  the  main 
chance,  letting  the  universe  wag  as  it  may. 
But  a  man  whose  life  is  guided  by  great  prin 
ciples,  who  cherishes  exalted  convictions  of 
duty,  who  is  solicitous  for  the  welfare  of  his 
fellows,  who  conceives  that  he  is  the  possessor 
of  truths  of  vital  significance  and  moment,  is 
anxious  that  his  name  should  be  respected,  and 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  109 

his  influence  felt.  For  the  same  reasons  a  na 
tion,  of  high  aims  and  honorable  ambition,  and 
especially  a  nation  that  holds  itself  to  be  in 
some  sort  the  representative  and  responsible 
director  of  a  vast  and  beneficent  movement, 
desires  to  receive  a  due  consideration  and  def 
erence.  The  historical  nations  which  have 
moulded  the  destinies  of  humanity — Greece, 
Rome,  France,  England,  Russia — are  the  na 
tions  that  have  asserted  their  own  titles  to 
respect,  not  in  empty  boasting,  but  by  actual 
deeds — while  .the  nations  which  have  lingered 
in  the  race,  impressing  no  character  on  ad 
vancing  civilization,  and  leaving  no  footsteps, 
even  in  the  desert — China,  Japan,  Turkey, 
Portugal,  Spain — are  those  which  have  shut 
themselves  up  in  their  own  exclusive  circles, 
and  pursued  no  broad,  generous,  world-em 
bracing  policy. 

The  slight  impression,  therefore,  that  the 
United  States  has  yet  made  on  the  nations  of 
the  globe  is  to  be  deplored.  Both  \ve  our 
selves  and  the  world  have  been  losers  by  the 
default.  Our  internal  advancement  has  been 
unparalleled ;  but  we  have  achieved  no  corre- 


110  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

spending  external  influence.  We  have  an  all- 
sufficient  consciousness  of  our  own  strength, 
but  Christendom  has  failed  to  recognize  it ;  is, 
in  fact,  only  beginning  to  feel  it  remotely, 
putting  us  aside  in  all  the  great  controversies 
of  the  nations,  as  bearded  men  thrust  aside  an 
ungrown  boy,  or  rather  overlooking  our  ex 
istence  as  though  we  were  not.  Who  has 
thought,  for  instance,  in  the  arrangements  of 
"  the  Eastern  question,"  which  have  now  agi 
tated  Europe  for  a  year,  that  the  United  States 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  matter?  Has  it 
been  so  much  as  consulted  in  a  single  move 
ment?  Is  it  ever  reckoned  in  these  or  any 
other  of  the  vast  distributions  of  human  in 
terests  and  human  happiness,  as  one  of  the 
parties  to  be  advised  with?  Not  at  all;  we 
are  not  enumerated  among  the  Great  Pow 
ers — are  indeed  left  out  of  the  calculation,  as 
the  crippled,  the  blind,  the  diseased,  or  the  old 
women  are  omitted  in  a  council  of  war.  But 
is  this  a  position  for  a  great  people?  It  is 
true,  that  it  may  not  have  been,  and  may  not 
yet  be,  for  our  interest,  to  take  part  in  Euro 
pean  troubles — but,  then,  it  is  for  us,  and  not 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  Ill 

for  others,  to  determine  how  far  and  when  we 
shall  act  or  not  act.  We  must  be  the  masters 
of  our  own  destinies,  and  not  mere  ciphers  in 
the  world,  like  the  savage  tribes  of  our  western 
wilderness,  or  the  remote,  feeble,  degraded, 
despised  islanders  of  the  Pacific.  If  we  are 
one  of  the  nations  of  the  earth — sovereign,  inde 
pendent,  and  powerful — let  it  be  so  distinctly 
understood ;  but  if  we  be  not,  let  us  stop  our 
fatuous  boastings,  and  sink  quietly  down,  like 
an  oyster,  in  its  complacent  mud,  satisfied  with 
whatever  of  succulence  the  chance  waves  waft 
to  our  shells. 

The  course  of  our  argument  has  brought  us, 
it  will  be  seen,  to  a  consideration  of  the  proper 
foreign  policy  of  the  government,  which  is  now 
beginning  to  occupy  the  field  of  American  poli 
tics.  Thus  far  we  cannot  be  said  to  have  had 
a  foreign  policy.  Our  attention  has  been  so 
absorbed  by  urgent  domestic  necessities,  that  it 
has  left  us  neither  time  nor  capacity  to  engage 
in  the  complicated  debates  of  the  external 
world.  Can  this  be  so  any  longer?  With 
commerce  weaving  a  network  for  us  over  every 
sea — with  traveling  and  trading  citizens  in 


112  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

every  country — with  an  expanding  territory, 
that,  while  it  looks  back  to  Europe,  is  also 
looking  over  to  Asia — with  a  whole  continent 
and  its  adjacent  islands  to  the  south,  imploring 
either  exploration,  or  protection,  or  annexation 
— with  new  channels  of  adventure  opening  on 
every  side — with  friendly  nations  struggling  in 
the  grasp  of  contending  despotisms,  and  be 
seeching  us  for  sympathy  and  aid — with  one 
neighbor  of  insatiate  maw  striving  to  monopo 
lize  the  opulent  markets  of  the  East — with 
another  imitating  the  ambition  of  Charlemagne 
or  Napoleon,  for  universal  empire — in  short, 
with  a  thousand  varying  impulses  and  seduc 
tions,  driving  and  soliciting  our  mercurial  and 
fearless  people,  it  is  inevitable  that  we  shall 
get  involved,  whether  we  will  it  or  not,  in  the 
great  political,  industrial,  and  social  movements 
of  mankind.  We  are,  in  fact,  already  em 
barked  on  the  wide,  wide  sea — we  have  quitted 
the  petty  streams  of  our  inland,  and  the  timid 
harbors  of  our  coast,  and  there  is  no  course 
left  for  us  but  to  guide  the  gallant  vessel  of 
state,  cleaving  the  outer  tides,  with  all  a  sea 
man's  prudence  and  a  seaman's  tact,  and  yet 


OUR   FOREIGN    INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  113 

with  all  a  seaman's  daring,  and  a  seaman's 
dauntless  energy. 

"  There  lies  the  port ;  the  vessel  puffs  her  sails, 
There  gloom  the  dark,  broad  seas." 

The  problem  for  us,  then,  is  not  whether  we 
shall  have  a  foreign  policy,  for  that,  as  we  con 
tend,  is  already  decided  by  events,  but  what 
that  policy  shall  be.  How  shall  we  deport 
ourselves  towards  the  other  nations  of  the 
earth  ?  What  position  shall  we  assume  in  their 
controversies  ?  What  character  and  course  do 
we  mean  to  assert  for  ourselves? — these  are 
the  imminent  and  clamorous  questions  of  the 
time.  They  are  questions  which,  in  one  as 
pect,  bristle  with  difficulties,  but  which,  in 
another  aspect,  are  of  the  readiest  solution. 
If  we  mean  to  launch  forth  upon  the  troubled 
waters  of  existing  diplomacy — if  we  design 
to  conduct  our  affairs  according  to  the  tra 
ditional  laws  of  intrigue  and  deceit,  which 
are  the  accepted  methods  of  courts  and  bureaus 
— we  shall  be  plunged  at  once  into  endless 
embarrassments;  but,  if  we  desire  simply  to 
adhere  to  our  own  convictions  of  right  and 


114  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

duty,  avoiding  all  entangling  alliances,  and 
disdaining  all  complicated  and  juggling  ma 
noeuvres,  but  asserting  our  own  principles  at 
all  hazards,  the  way  for  us  is  clear — not  wholly 
free  from  embarrassments,  but  fn*e  from  dis 
honor  and  disgrace. 

Tell  us  what  an  upright,  sympathetic,  fear 
less  man — a  man  of  unequivocal,  unswerving 
principles — would  do  in  the  society  of  his 
equals  and  fellows ;  tell  us  what  aims  he  would 
cherish,  what  deportment  he  would  maintain, 
what  prudent  and  wise,  but  unfailing  maxims 
he  would  lay  at  the  fountain-head  of  all  his 
being ;  and  we  will  tell  you  what  ought  to  be 
the  foreign  as  well  as  the  domestic  deportment 
of  a  great  nation !  For  nations  are  but  larger 
men,  governed  by  the  same  rules  of  jus 
tice  and  Christian  sympathy  and  principle. 
Prove  that  it  is  best  for  a  man  to  be  con 
trolled  only  by  the  probabilities  of  his  com 
mercial  success — prove  that  the  circle  of  his 
interest  and  that  of  his  immediate  family  ought 
to  be  the  horizon  of  his  endeavors  and  hopes — 
prove  that  he  has  no  vital  connection  with,  or 
joint  responsibility  for  his  race — and  then  we 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  115 

pledge  ourselves  to  prove  the  same  low  theory 
of  existence  as  the  true  policy  of  that  man's 
nation!  But  admit,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
Christianity,  and  its  heir  and  legatee,  demo 
cracy,  have  revealed  a  higher  and  nobler  ideal 
of  life,  and  then  you  admit  that  nations  are 
moral  beings,  bound  to  a  rigid  obedience  to, 
and  an  active  prosecution  of,  all  the  laws  of 
human  duty,  according  to  their  condition. 

Now,  the  United  States,  in  reference  to  the 
other  nations  of  the  earth,  are  placed  in  this 
relation.  They  are  young,  fresh,  and  vigorous, 
abounding  in  wealth,  exulting  in  strength,  and 
eager  for  action.  They  come  of  a  race,  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  seemingly  endowed  with  a  death 
less  spring  and  vitality — a  race  which  crushed 
old  Rome,  when  Rome  oppressed  the  world 
— which  reared  the  stupendous  structure  of 
British  enterprise — which  impelled  the  armies 
of  the  Reformation — which  planted  in  the  New 
World  the  hardiest  of  its  colonists — and  which 
now,  commanding  the  citadel  as  well  as  the 
outposts  of  civilization,  wields  the  destinies  of 
all  the  tribes.  They  have  been  reserved  by 
Providence,  moreover,  for  the  exemplification  of 


116  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  most  beneficent  theory  of  government  that 
was  ever  vouchsafed  to  man.  Great  heavens! 
how  can  we,  then,  how  can  any  American, 
hesitate  as  to  the  great  part  his  country  ought, 
and  is  clearly  called,  to  play  in  the  rapidly- 
developing  drama  of  the  nineteenth  century  ? 

What !  exclaims  some  tremulous  Aspen,  who 
has  money  in  the  funds,  Would  you  have 
America,  like  an  opium-crazed  Chinese, 

"  Kun  a  muck,  and  tilt  at  all  he  meets  ?" 

Must  it,  the  Anacharsis  Clootz  of  nations,  pro 
claim  itself  the  "  orator  of  the  human  race,"  or, 
like  a  Don  Quixote  of  democracy,  go  searching 
the  world  for  forlorn  damsels  to  protect  ? 

For  his  sake,  we  will  be  a  little  more  explicit. 
The  United  States,  we  have  said,  must  have  a 
foreign  policy — good  or  bad,  wise  or  foolish, 
self-advancing  or  self-debasing.  It  must  have 
it ;  for  it  cannot  escape,  if  it  would,  the  posi 
tion  forced  upon  it  by  its  relations  to  the  world. 
It  cannot  cut  the  web  of  trade  which  it  lias 
thrown  round  the  globe  ;  it  cannot  seclude 
itself  from  all  contact  with  other  nations;  it 
cannot  fly  from  the  contagion  of  sympathy  ;  it 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  117 

cannot  leap  the  bounds  of  knowledge,  nor  avoid 
the  dominion  of  morals  and  religion.  Yet, 
trade,  contact,  sympathy,  knowledge,  religion, 
all  compel  it  to  a  decision  of  the  mode  in  which 
it  will  bear  itself  in  its  international  inter 
course. 

It  seems  to  us  that  our  true  policy  may  be 
expressed,  under  its  several  heads,  as  follows . 
1st,  a  rigid  fidelity,  both  at  home  and  abroad, 
to  the  great  democratic  principle,  which  is  the 
essence  of  our  national  life  ;  2nd,  a  prompt  and 
full  protection  of  every  citizen,  guiltless  of 
wrong,  wherever  he  may  be,  and  whoever  he 
may  be ;  3rd,  an  exact  fulfillment,  to  the  very 
letter,  of  the  obligation  of  treaties,  at  every 
cost ;  4th,  the  instant  arrest  of  all  schemes  of 

foreign  aggression,  coupled  with  a  willingness 

• 

to  receive  into  the  Union  new  nations,  that  are 
thoroughly  republican  in  their  government  and 
their  societies;  and,  finally,  an  avowed  and  un 
reserved  sympathy  with  people  struggling  for 
their  emancipation,  the  earliest  recognition  of 
their  independence,  and  a  guaranty  of  that  inde 
pendence,  when  once  established,  against  the 
forceful  or  wanton  interference  of  other  nations, 


118  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  in  support  of  the  uniform  and  acknowledged 
public  law  of  the  civilized  world. 

The  majority  of  these  points,  we  are  sure, 
will  meet  approval  in  this  community.  No 
American  can  wish  that  our  republic  should 
be  other,  in  any  of  its  bearings,  than  a  demo 
cratic  republic  ;  no  American  can  be  reasonably 
opposed  to  the  pacific  extension  of  commerce ; 
no  American,  out  of  Sing  Sing,  or  the  lunatic 
asylum,  would  wish  to  deny  the  sanctity  of 
treaties.  As  to  the  protection  of  all  citizens, 
the  recent  demonstrations  on  the  Koszta  affair 
have  settled  that ;  and  so,  the  only  reservations 
or  controversies  our  schedule  suggests,  must 
relate  to  the  form  in  which  it  has  presented  the 
subjects  of  annexation  and  intervention. 

No  one  can  be  more  profoundly  convinced 
than  we  are,  that  the  best  interests  of  the 
American  people  look  to  a  concentration,  rather 
than  a  dispersion  of  their  power.  We  have 
land  enough — more  than  can  be  occupied  and 
cultivated  for  two  hundred  years ;  we  enjoy 
already  every  variety  of  climate  and  every 
character  of  soil ;  we  have  no  formidable  neigh 
bors  to  threaten  our  progress  in  any  direction ; 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUS^TCE    AND    POLICY.  119 

and  we  have  no  need  of  conquests,  either  to 
insure  our  future  expansion  or  to  fortify  our 
present  tenures.  The  projects  of  colonial  ag 
grandizement,  which  some  put  forth,  are  as 
uncalled  for  as  they  are  unprincipled.  If  they 
were  undertaken,  they  could  but  distract  our  en 
ergies,  waste  our  resources,  retard  the  increase 
of  manufactures  and  the  arts,  excite  sectional 
animosities,  provoke  foreign  wars,  and,  suppos 
ing  them  successful,  add  nothing  essential  to  our 
internal  strength.  No  nation  that  ever  existed 
had  less  to  expect  from  violent  aggressions  than 
ours ;  to  none  is  the  example  of  barbarous,  old, 
all-conquering  Rome,  which  has  been  conspicu 
ously  cited  to  inspire  us,  less  applicable ;  for  to 
none  is  the  arbitrary  genius  of  military  enter 
prise  more  repugnant,  or  the  gentle  arts  of 
peace  more  congenial.  Away,  then,  with  the 
mad  schemes  of  plunder  and  bloodshed,  with 
which  the  lust  of  adventure  strives  to  impreg 
nate  the  restless  excitability  of  our  people  ! 

But,  though  we  oppose  the  frenzy  of  terri 
torial  acquisition,  let  us  not  oppose  the  gradual 
and  legitimate  growth  of  the  nation!  The 
concentration  of  our  capital  and  industry  on  the 


120  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

opportunities  we  already  possess,  the  careful 
yet  rapid  development  of  our  internal  resources, 
the  energetic  pursuit  of  present  advantages, 
the  advancement  and  perfecting  of  the  civilizing 
tendencies  now  at  work — these  must  be  our 
prime  objects :  but  a  Chinese  exclusiveness,  an 
iron- ringed  and  churlish  repulsion  of  foreign 
accretions,  must  never  be  thought  of.  If  there 
are  nations  about  us — Canada  or  Mexico — 
eager  to  participate  in  the  benefits  of  our 
federal  union — if  they  are  poor,  dependent,  dis 
tracted  alone,  while  they  would  become  rich, 
vigorous,  and  happy  united,  let  us  not  forbid 
the  banns  of  marriage,  but  welcome  them  to 
our  arms  with  a  bridegroom's  embrace. 

The  federal  relation  is  the  true  relation  for 
all  people, 

"  The  unity  and  married  cairn  of  states," 

bearing  the  richest  fruit,  sanctifying  and  sweet 
ening  intercourse  with  delicious  friendships, 
while  the  old  treaty  relation  is  a  cold,  casual, 
and  licentious  cohabitation — a  bondage  of  fear 
and  feebleness,  and  exposed  to  perpetual  strifes. 
The  latter  is  uncertain  and  willful ;  the  former 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND   POLICY.  121 

constitutional  and  permanent.  The  one  de 
pends  on  the  caprice  of  monarchs  and  majorities 
— the  other  is  fixed  by  eternal,  ever-strengthen 
ing  law.  The  one  is  a  mere  alliance,  as  fragile 
as  the  whims  of  those  who  are  parties  to  it ; 
but  the  other  is  a  union,  steel-clasped  and  ce 
mented,  yet  fluent  with  freedom.  Thus,  while 
the  older  nations  of  Europe  exhibit  the  specta 
cle  of  hostile  camps,  which  enjoy  peace  during 
temporary  truces  only,  these  thirty  nations  of 
the  New  World  are  joined  in  a  perpetual  amity, 
each  free,  yet  as  a  whole  harmonious.  The 
principle  of  federal  union,  in  short,  is  the  high 
est  principle  of  political  connection  known  to 
man ;  and  wherever  it  is  permitted  to  extend, 
will  carry  with  it  the  blessings  of  peace,  indus 
try,  wealth,  and  popular  enlightenment,  even 
until  the  world  shall  be  embraced  in  that 

"  Immortal  league  of  love,  which  brings 
Our  free,  broad  empire,  state  with  state." 

As  to  what  our  screed  of  doctrine  asserts  in 
regard  to  intervention,  it  is  nothing  more  than 
a  declaration  that  we  ought  to  uphold  the 

recognized   international    law    of   the    world, 
6 


122  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

against  all  wanton  violations  of  it ;  or,  in  the 
words  of  Mr.  Webster,  that  we  are  prepared 
'l  to  protect  neutrality,  to  defend  neutrality, 
and,  if  need  be,  to  take  up  arms  for  neutrality." 
It  brings  us,  we  admit,  into  direct  conflict  with 
the  policy  proclaimed  by  certain  European 
sovereigns,  at  the  congresses  held  successively 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Troppau,  Laybach,  Verona, 
and  Vienna,  and  which  substituted  their  own  ar 
bitrary  will  for  the  long-settled  and  clearly-rec 
ognized  international  law  of  Christendom.  It 
will  be  remembered  that  the  maxims  announced 
during  those  colossal  plots  against  the  rights  of 
man  and  the  dignity  of  nations  were  :  1st,  that 
all  popular  and  constitutional  rights  were  held 
only  as  grants  from  the  crown,  or,  in  their  own 
language,  "that  useful  and  necessary  changes 
in  legislation  and  in  the  administration  of  states 
ought  only  to  emanate  from  the  free  will  and 
well-weighed  conviction  of  those  whom  God  has 
intrusted  with  power — while  all  that  deviates  from 
this  line  necessarily  leads  to  disorder,  commo 
tions,  and  evils  far  more  insufferable  than  those 
they  pretend  to  remedy ;"  which  was  an  un 
blushing  allegation  of  the  divine  right  of  kings ; 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  123 

and  2nd,  the  right  of  the  sovereigns  to  interfere 
in  the  affairs  of  other  nations — or,  to  use  their 
own  words  again,  "  their  undoubted  right  to 
take  a  hostile  attitude  in  regard  to  those  states 
in  which  the  overthrow  of  the  government 
may  operate  as  an  example ;"  which  means 
their  right  to  suppress  attempts  at  popular  en 
franchisement,  wherever  they  might  be  made. 

Now,  against  the  first  of  these  atrocious  doc 
trines,  our  very  existence  as  a  nation  is  an  open, 
direct,  and  standing  protest ;  for,  if  it  be  true, 
then  our  very  existence  as  a  free  people  is  an 
act  of  rebellion,  a  state  of  anarchy,  a  daring  re 
sistance  of  the  will  of  God !  But  the  second 
of  them  is  no  less  flagrant  an  outrage  on  public 
law  and  national  rights.  Both  reign  supreme 
over  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  have  been, 
time  and  time  again,  forcefully  asserted.  When 
Spain  restored  the  liberal  constitution  of  1812 
— when  Naples  revolted  against  the  tyranni 
cal  Ferdinand — when  Sardinia  rose  for  its  con 
stitutional  rights — when  Poland,  with  a  cry 
of  agony,  sprang  from  under  the  foot  of  the 
trampling  Russ — when  Germany  rang  with  the 
patriotic  cry  of  German  unity — when  Hungary, 


124  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

by  a  series  of  gallant  and  glorious  battles,  had 
repelled  the  Austrian  invader  from  her  soil, 
and,  in  the  eloquent,  touching  tones  of  her 
great  leader,  proclaimed  her  original  independ 
ence — when  Rome,  catching  from  the  noble 
spirit  of  Mazzini  some  of  her  ancient  virtue,  and 
her  ancient  valor,  expelled  her  oppressors — the 
banded  despots  of  that  infamous  league,  called 
the  Holy  Alliance,  stood  by  to  extinguish  the 
rising  sentiments  of  liberty.  The  whole  history 
of  Europe,  indeed,  for  the  last  thirty  years,  has 
been  one  continuous  scene  of  monstrous  and 
brutal  outrage,  inflicted  by  the  parties  to  this 
pact  of  despotism,  on  people  over  whom  they 
had  no  legitimate  control,  against  the  estab 
lished  law  of  nations,  and  against  all  justice, 
and  all  humanity. 

Now,  we  say,  that  it  is  the  bounden  duty,  the 
only  wise,  and,  in  fact,  safe  policy,  for  the 
United  States,  as  a  free  and  Christian  nation — 
as  a  nation  rejecting  utterly,  and  with  loathing, 
the  infernal  system  of  the  monarchs,  to  protest 
against  it,  tods  viribiis,  on  every  occasion,  and  at 
any  risk.  We  say,  that  whenever  any  of  these 
unhappy  mediatized  nations  shall  rise,  to  cast 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE   AND    POLICY.  125 

off  foreign  oppression,  our  sympathies  should 
be  allowed  to  rush  forth  to  iffcs  encouragement 
and  aid ;  and  that,  when  it  shall  have  expelled 
the  intruder,  we  should  at  once,  and  gladly, 
recognize  its  independence,  and  guaranty  it, 
if  need  be,  against  the  pillage  of  the  imperial 
robbers.  All  that  such  a  guaranty  implies 
is  an  earnest  and  decided  protest,  in  the  name 
of  violated  law  and  outraged  humanity,  against 
a  gigantic  usurpation  and  fraud.  Coming  from 
the  fresh  young  Kepublic  of  the  West,  and 
echoing  from  the  hillsides  of  the  Alps  and  the 
Apennines,  along  the  valleys  of  the  Rhine  and 
the  Danube,  such  a  protest  would  be  heard 
among  the  tottering  dynasties  like  the  roar  of 
advancing  thunder.  It  would  be  wafted,  on 
its  passage,  by  the  ascending  sighs  of  the  na 
tions  ;  it  would  gather  into  one  the  voices  of 
good  men  everywhere,  and  fall  upon  the  startled 
ears  of  the  conspirators  like  a  blast  from  the  last 
trumpet,  calling  them  to  judgrrux., 

We  have  not  the  slightest  apprehension  that 
such  a  course  would  result  in  war.  In  the 
hazard  of  provoking  a  universal  rising  of  the 
European  populations,  we  do  not  believe  that 


126  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

any  despot  would  be  found  bold  enough  to  en 
gage  in  a  contest  with  an  active  and  powerful 
foreign  antagonist,  against  the  known  public 
law  of  the  civilized  world.  That  law,  accord 
ing  to  the  dictates  of  justice,  according  to 
the  established  usage,  according  to  received 

O       '  O 

writers,  is  the  complete,  sovereign,  exclusive 
independence  of  each  nation,  so  long  as  it 
trespasses  on  no  other  nation.  All  nations, 
therefore,  are  interested  in  maintaining  it,  as 
much  as  individuals  are  interested  in  maintain 
ing  the  laws  of  the  society  to  which  they  be 
long.  But,  if  it  is  to  be  thrown  aside  by  the 
supporters  of  absolutism  whenever  it  pleases 
them,  then  it  must  be  disregarded  by  the  sap- 
porters  of  freedom  whenever  it  pleases  free 
men.  There  cannot  be,  in  reason  or  equity,  a 
right  of  intervention  for  one,  and  no  right  of 
intervention  for  the  other — a  right  of  systematic 
and  persistent  combination  for  the  despots,  but 
no  right  of  combination  for  the  democrats.  If 
the  monarchs  engage  in  a  Holy  Alliance,  the 
people  must  counteract  them  by  another  Holy 
Alliance,  in  the  spirit  of  Beranger's  well-known 
and  beautiful  poem. 


OUR   FOREIGN   INFLUENCE    AND    POLICY.  127 

Should  a  war,  however,  spring  out  of  it,  in 
what  more  just  or  magnanimous  battle  could 
a  great  people  engage?  Unlike  the  contests 
which  have  so  often  desolated  our  poor  earth, 
it  would  not  be  a  strife  for  territory,  nor  for  a 
line  of  succession,  nor  for  the  subjection  of 
weak  dependents,  but  a  glorious  struggle  for 
liberty,  justice,  and  humanity — for  the  stricken 
rights  of  nations,  for  the  violated  majesty  of 
law,  for  enlarged  human  intercourse,  and  for 
the  golden  rule  of  Christian  civilization. 

OCTOBER,  1853. 


ANNEXATION, 

How  many  and  loud  are  the  objurgations 
with  which  that  pattern  father  of  a  family,  Mr. 
Bull,  visits  the  marauding  propensities  of  his 
disinherited  son,  Jonathan?  "  The  graceless 
urchin,"  the  old  gentleman  is  constantly  repeat 
ing,  "  who  has  already  grown  so  large  that  his 
feet  stick  out  far  beyond  his  trowsers,  is  as 
greedy  as  one  of  his  own  turkey-buzzards,  and 
as  sharp  and  unconscionable  as  one  of  his  own 
peddlers.  He  has,  during  the  very  short  time 
that  he  has  lived,  cheated  the  poor  Indians  out 
of  twenty  or  thirty  States  ;  has  flogged  Mexico 
into  the  relinquishment  of  half  a  dozen  more, 
is  bullying  Spain  for  the  surrender  of  Cuba, 
has  hoodwinked  Kamehameha  I.,  until  he 
scarcely  knows  whether  the  Sandwich  Islands 
are  his  own  or  not,  and  is  deliberately  survey 
ing  Japan  with  a  view  to  some  future  landing  ! 
Was  there  ever  a  more  unprincipled,  insatiable, 


ANNEXATION.  129 

rapacious,  gormandizing  Filibuster  than  that 
same  Jonathan,  who  fancies  that  the  whole 
world  was  made  for  use,  and  his  use,  too,  and 
has  no  more  scruple  about  laying  his  hands  upon 
any  part  of  it,  than  a  fox  has  in  satisfying  his 
hunger  in  a  goose-pen  !" 

Having  said  this,  Bull  rolls  up  his  eyes  in  the 
most  moral  manner,  heaves  a  lugubrious  sigh, 
and  sits  down  to  a  perusal  of  the  Times,  which 
contains  several  long  colums  of  dispatches  from 
India,  and  a  general  account  of  the  colonies 
from  Australia  and  the  Cape,  to  the  most  north 
ern  iceberg  on  which  Capt.  Maclure  has  recent 
ly  hoisted  the  "  meteor-flag." 

He  is  somewhat  consoled  by  the  perusal,  and 
especially  by  the  comments  of  the  editor  on  the 
inappeasable  ambition  of  republics.  They  en 
courage  him  into  a  sound  appetite  for  his  rolls 
and  coffee,  after  which  he  smilingly  turns  to 
Punch,  whose  jokes  upon  yankee-doodledom 
are  very  mirthful,  causing  John  to  split  his  fat 
sides  almost,  over  cunning  exposures  of  Ameri 
can  hypocrisy,  boastfulness,  negro-driving,  and 
land-stealing.  Meantime,  the  entertaining  vol 
umes  of  some  traveler  in  "  the  States"  are  laid 
6* 


130  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

upon  his  table,  hot  from  the  press,  and  brilliant 
with  the  keenest  sarcasms  provoked  by  our  vul 
garity,  which  the  facetious  Cockney  (who,  if  he 
were  called  upon  to  read  aloud  what  he  had 
written,  could  not  pronounce  his  own  mother 
tongue,)  shows  up  in  a  variety  of  the  most 
amusing  lights. 

Well,  touching  a  great  deal  of  this,  which 
gives  John  a  good  laugh,  we  shall  have  nothing 
to  say  ;  many  of  us  enjoy  it  quite  as  much  as 
he  can,  and  for  bettter  reasons  ;  but  on  the 
subject  of  annexation,  or  the  imputed  zeal  of 
republics  to  grasp  all  they  can  get,  we  mean  to 
put  in  an  apology,  using  that  word  in  its  anci 
ent  sense,  as  both  a  denial  and  a  justification, 
on  the  part  of  nations  to  take  the  property 
We  mean  to  prove,  firstly,  that  a  willingness 
of  their  neighbors  is  no  new  thing  under  the 
sun,  so  that  if  the  United  States  had  been 
guilty  of  it,  they  would  have  been  acting  only 
in  a  line  of  decided  precedents.  And  we  mean 
to  prove,  secondly,  that  we  have  not  been  guilty 
of  it  at  all,  in  any  injurious  sense,  while  our 
entire  national  action  and  diplomacy  have  been 
more  liberal,  just,  candid,  and  forbearing,  than 


ANNEXATION.  131 

those  of  any  other  nation.  Yes  ;  you  facetious 
and  vituperative  Bulls !  we  have  been  the  first 
among  nations  to  set  the  example  of  an  open, 
generous,  equitable  international  policy,  and 
whatever  advances  modern  statesmen  may  have 
made  toward  the  substitution  of  highminded 
negotiations  for  over-reaching  intrigue  and  se 
cret  diplomacy,  they  have  in  nothing  surpassed 
us  much  calumniated  republicans  ! 

Many  of  the  foreign  tourists  and  editors,  who 
chatter  of  American  annexation,  really  seem  to 
suppose  that  annexation  has  never  before  been 
heard  of  in  the  history  of  mankind.  "  Did  you 
ever  !"  they  exclaim  in  tones  of  offended  virtue, 
like  an  old  lady,  who  has  just  been  told  some 
precious  piece  of  scandal,  forgetting,  in  the  ex 
cess  of  her  indignation  and  surprise,  the  small 
indiscretions  of  her  own  youth.  "  Did  you  ever? 
These  republicans  must  be  actually  insane  in 
their  avidity  for  more  lands !  Not  satisfied 
with  the  immense  slice  of  the  western  conti 
nent  they  now  possess,  they  warn  us  Europeans 
oft'  the  rest  of  it,  and  are  consumed  with  fiery 
desires  for  the  islands  of  the  sea.  Like  the  re 
publics  of  old,  like  the  republics  of  Italy,  this 


IdZ  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

modern  republic  gives  token  of  the  character 
istic  weakness  of  its  kind  ;  it  must  live  by  con 
quest,  and,  like  all  its  forerunners,  swell  until 
it  bursts." 

Oh  !  Crapaud  and  Bull,  how  can  you  utter 
such  nonsense  ?  Annexation  is  no  new  thing, 
nor  is  it  peculiarly  republican  !  Every  page 
of  history  is  full  of  it,  from  the  time  of  the  ear 
liest  vagabond  and  fugitive,  Cain,  who  built  a 
city  in  the  land  of  Nod,  which  was  not  his,  un 
til  the  latest  English  war  in  Burmah  !  It  is  the 
one  subject,  indeed,  the  burden  of  human  an 
nals.  The  first  command  given  to  Noah,  after  the 
flood,  was  to  be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  re 
plenish  the  earth,  or,  as  it  may  be  translated,  take 
possession  of  the  earth,  and  ever  since,  that  divine 
injunction,  if  no  other,  has  been  faithfully  obey 
ed  by  his  descendants.  Do  we  not  all  remem 
ber,  that  the  condition  of  the  magnificent  bless 
ings  which  the  Lord  promised  to  Abram,  was, 
that  he  should  begin  a  long  process  of  annexa 
tion,  by  "  getting  out  of  his  own  country,  and 
his  own  kindred,  and  his  father's  house,"  and 
settling  in  another  land  ?  What  was  the  Exo 
dus  of  the  children  of  Israel,  tinder  Moses,  but 


ANNEXATION.  133 

a  preparatory  step  to  the  seizure  of  Canaan, 
which  was  no  sooner  taken  than  it  was  divided 
by  lot,  among  the*  nine  and  a  half  tribes,  the 
other  two  and  a  half  having  already  pocketed 
their  allowance  on  this  side  the  Jordan  ?  And 
what  the  whole  subsequent  career  of  the  He 
brews  under  Joshua,  but  a  series  of  skirmishes 
with  their  amiable  neighbors,  the  Amorites,  the 
Hittites,  the  Hivites,  the  Jebusites,  etc.,  whose 
country  they  had  invaded,  annexing  "  all  the 
land,  the  hills,  the  south  country,  the  valley 
and  the  plain,  and  the  mountain  of  Israel  and 
the  valley  of  the  same  ;"  appropriating  the  cat 
tle,  despoiling  the  cities,  smiting  the  kings,  and 
utterly  routing  and  rooting  out  the  people,  so 
that,  as  we  are  told,  "  not  any  one  was  left  to 
breathe  !"  Nor  was  this  wholesale  and  slaugh 
terous  policy  much  changed  under  the  judges 
and  the  kings,  in  spite  of  the  reverses  experi 
enced  at  the  hands  of  the  Moabites,  the  Midian- 
ites,  and  the  Philistines  ;  for,  scarcely  had  they 
recovered  their  power  under  Saul  and  David, 
before  they  struck  out  again  to  the  right  and 
left,  burning  cities,  levying  bond- service,  and 
converting  everybody's  territory  to  their  own 


134  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

use.  Jerusalem,  their  great  city,  fell  a  prey 
at  last  to  the  same  spirit,  manifested  by  their 
Roman  neighbors  ;  yet,  on*  the  heels  of  this 
overwhelming  disaster,  the  last  vaticination  of 
the  apostle  of  Patmos,  as  his  prophetic  eyes 
swept  down  the  tracks  of  time,  was,  that  good 
Christians  every  where  should  "  inherit  the  land." 
The  fact  is,  that  none  of  these  Orientals  were 
ever  over  particular  as  to  seizing  the  territories 
of  a  friend.  If  they  wanted  what  he  possessed, 
they  took  it,  and  gave  him  a  drubbing  if  he  ob 
jected.  As  far  back  as  we  can  penetrate  in 
their  annals,  even  to  those  remote  periods  when 
the  twilight  of  tradition  itself  merges  in  the 
primeval  darkness,  we  find  that  their  kings  and 
leaders  were  adepts  in  the  annexing  business, 
carrying  it  on  on  a  prodigious  scale,  and  quite 
regardless  of  the  huge  rivers  of  blood  which 
they  often  had  to  wade  through,  in  the  accom 
plishment  of  their  purposes.  Some  of  them, 
indeed,  have  left  no  other  name  behind  them, 
for  the  admiration  of  posterity,  than  that  ac 
quired  in  expeditions  undertaken  with  the 
laudable  design  of  stripping  a  neighbor  of  his 
possessions.  We  know  little  of  Sesostris 


ANNEXATION.  135 

and  Semiramis ;  but  that  little  is  enough  to 
justify  Edmund  Burke,  in  setting  over  against 
the  conquests  of  the  former,  about  one  million 
of  lives,  and  agakist  those  of  the  latter,  about 
three  millions.'  "  All  expired,"  he  exclaimed,  "  in 
quarrels  in  which  the  sufferers  had  not  the  least 
rational  concern."  Old  Nebuchadnezzar,  too, 
who  flourished  in  Babylon,  according  to  the 
Bible,  what  a  thriving  fellow  he  was  in  this  line  ! 
The  little  state  of  Judea  was  scarcely  a  flea-bite 
for  him ;  and  though  he  despoiled  Egypt,  and 
demolished  Tyre,  he  was  quite  uncomfortable 
until  Phoenicia,  Palestine,  Syria,  Media,  Persia, 
and  the  greater  part  of  India,  were  added  to 
his  already  considerable  farm.  Nor,  was  he, 
after  all,  to  be  compared  to  that  series  of  mag 
nificent  Persian  monarchs,  who  thought  no  more 
of  razing  hundred-gated  cities  to  the  earth,  and 
laying  hold  of  vast  empires,  than  Barnum's 
anaconda  does  of  bolting  a  rabbit  ?  There  was 
first,  Cyrus,  a  most  prosperous  gentleman,  as 
the  good  Xenophon  relates,  who  overran  pretty 
much  the  whole  of  Asia  ;  and  next,  his  promis 
ing  son,  Cambyses,  who  took  Tyre,  Cyprus, 
Egypt,  Macedonia,  Thrace,  etc.  ;  and  then  his 


136  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

son  again,  Xerxes,  "a  chip  of  the  old  block," 
and  finally  his  descendants  once  more,  Artaxerx- 
es,  first,  second,  and  third — all  "  chips  of  the  old 
block" — what  a  way  they  had  of  sacrificing  mil 
lions  upon  millions  of  people  in  their  little  ter 
ritorial  disputes  ?  It  was  well,  indeed,  that  the 
Greeks,  at  Marathon,  put  a  stop  to  the  ravages, 
or  there  is  no  telling  to  what  extent  they  might 
have  carried  their  sanguinary  sports — perhaps 
as  far  as  Alexander  of  Macedon,  who,  begin 
ning  with  a  small  strip  in  the  south  of  Europe, 
annexed  patch  after  patch,  until  he  became,  be 
yond  all  question,  the  largest  landed  proprietor 
in  the  known  world.  A  bird  flying  for  several 
days  together  in  a  straight  line,  could  scarcely 
have  passed  from  the  western  to  the  eastern 
boundaries  of  his  dominions.  A  splendid  an- 
nexationist,  truly,  was  the  great  Alexander  ! 

There  was  one  of  the  ancient  nations,  more 
modest  than  the  rest,  which  we  ought  to  except 
from  this  career  of  conquest  and  spoliation  ;  for 
during  the  greater  part  of  its  existence  it  was 
content  with  its  own  moderate  limits,  and  the 
production  of  Iliads,  Prometheus  Vinctuses,  Par- 
thenons,  and  Orations  de  Corona.  We  refer  to 


ANNEXATION.  137 

Greece,  which,  being  more  republican  than  the 
rest  of  the  world,  ought  to  have  been,  accord 
ing  to  the  modern  theory,  more  omnivorous 
than  the  rest.  But  Greece  was  poor-spirited 
in  comparison.  She  had  become  so  enamored 
with  her  own  glorious  skies  and  hills,  was  so 
delighted  with  her  own  fair  climate,  and  so  be 
sotted  with  a  certain  dreamy  notion  of  beauty 
and  self-perfection,  that,  like  a  woman  as  she 
was,  she  seldom  passed  beyond  her  own  thresh 
old.  Not  that  she  was  afraid  of  fighting,  either, 
as  certain  places  named  Thermopylae  and  Sala- 
mis  bear  witness ;  but  that  she  was  quite  des 
titute  of  that  grandeur  of  soul  which  led  Belus, 
Sesostris,  and  the  other  illustrious  individuals 
to  whom  we  have  referred,  to  cut  their  way  to 
glory,  by  cutting  the  throats  of  so  many  of 
their  fellow-humans. 

We  shall  have  to  dismiss  republican  Greece, 
then,  as  rather  an  untoward  case,  and  turn  to 
imperial  Rome.  Ah !  how  her  records  blaze 
with  exam  pies  of  a  thorough  spirit  of  annexation  ! 
Suckled  by  a  wolf  in  the  beginning,  Rome  never 
lost  her  original  vulpine  nature,  but,  to  the 
day  of  her  dissolution,  went  prowling  about  the 


138  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

world,  wherever  there  was  a  sheep-fold  to  break 
into  or  an  innocent  lamb  to  be  eaten.  Look  into 
the  index  of  any  popular  history  of  her  triumphs, 
and  mark  how  it  is  composed  of  one  unbroken 
series  of  annexations  !  Thus  it  reads  :  B.  c.  283, 
the  Gauls  and  Etrurians  subdued  ;  B.  c.  278, 
Sicily  conquered ;  B.  c.  266,  Rome  mistress  of  all 
Italy  ;  B.  c.  264,  the  first  Punic  War  ;  B.  c.  231, 
Sardinia  and  Corsica  conquered  ;  B.  c.  224,  the 
Romans  first  cross  the  Po ;  B.  c.  223,  colonies 
of  Placentia  and  Cremona  established  ;  B.  c. 
222,  Insularia  (Milan)  and  Liguria  (Genoa) 
taken ;  B.  c.  213,  the  Second  Punic  War ; 
B.  c.  212,  Syracuse  and  Sicily  conquered  ;  B.  c. 
210,  Scipio  takes  New  Carthage;  B.  c.  204, 
Scipio  carries  the  war  into  Africa ;  B.  c.  195, 
war  made  upon  Spain  ;  B.  c.  188,  Syria  reduced 
to  a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  168,  Macedon  be 
comes  a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  149,  Third  Pu 
nic  War  and  conquest  of  Corinth;  B.  c.  146, 
Greece  becomes  a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  135, 
Spain  a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  133,  Perga- 
us  a  Roman  province;  B.  c.  118,  Dalmatia  a 
Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  105,  Numidia  becomes 
a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  99,  Lusitania  becomes 


ANNEXATION.  139 

a  Roman  province  ;  B.  c.  SO,  Julius  Caesar's 
first  campaign — and  after  that  the  reduction  of 
the  world,  from  the  hot  sands  of  the  desert, 
south,  to  the  fogs  of  Britain  in  the  north,  and 
from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  in 
the  other  direction.  The  veni,  vidi,  vici.  in  short, 
was  not  an  individual  saying,  but  a  universal 
Roman  maxim. 

We  might  refer,  too,  now  that  we  are  on  the 
train  of  historical  locomotion,  to  those  extraor 
dinary  migrations  of  the  German  races,  who 
seem  to  have  had  no  other  object  in  life  than 
to  overrun  the  territories  of  others,  and  who, 
in  the  end,  coming  on  like  whirling  sand-storms 
of  the  desert,  paid  Rome  in  her  own  coin  ;  or 
to  those  exciting  episodes  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  myriads  of  pious  and  blood-thirsty  cru 
saders  flung  themselves  upon  Asia,  to  recover 
the  Holy  Land ;  or  to  the  impartial  ferocity 
of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  in  their  excur 
sions  over  South  America  ;  or  to  the  lively 
annals  of  treachery,  freebooting,  and  assassina 
tion  by  which  the  many  great  and  royal  houses 
of  Europe  built  up  their  power — such  as  the 
house  of  Bourbon,  which  gradually  enlarged  its 


140  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

right  to  a  few  acres,  to  a  right  coextensive  with 
France — or  to  the  house  of  Hapsburg,  a  small 
German  dukedom  at  the  start,  but  now  a 
mighty  empire  in  which  a  dozen  kingdoms  are 
absorbed — or  to  the  house  of  Bonaparte,  which 
began  without  a  sous  to  bless  its  stars  with, 
but  which  speedily  enlarged  its  phylacteries, 
and  got  itself  warm  on  nearly  all  the  thrones 
of  the  Continent :  or,  in  brief,  to  a  hundred 
other  instances  of  enormous  adventure  and  gi 
gantic  brigandage.  But  the  truth  is,  that  this 
kind  of  thing  is  the  staple  and  uniform  of  all 
annals. 

Kabelais,  in  his  famous  outline  of  conquest, 
which  the  gallant  statesmen  of  Pichricole  pre 
sented  to  that  chivalric  monarch,  though  he 
has  caught  the  spirit  of  this  national  Rob-Roy- 
ism,  combining  its  own  largeness  of  view  with 
the  easy  effrontery  of  the  swell-mob,  hardly 
equals  veritable  history.  "  You  will  divide 
your  army,"  said  the  Duke  of  Smalltrash,  the 
Earl  of  Swashbuckler,  and  Captain  Durtaille, 
who  were  Pichricole's  advisers,  "  into  two  parts. 
One  shall  fall  upon  Grangouzier  and  his  forces  ; 
and  the  other  shall  draw  towards  Onys,  Xain- 


ANNEXATION. 


toigne,  Angoumois,  and  Gascony.  Then  march 
to  Perigourt,  Medos,  and  Elanes,  taking,  wher 
ever  you  come,  without  resistance,  towns,  cas 
tles,  and  forts  ;  afterwards  to  Bayonne,  St. 
John  de  Luz,  to  Fuentarabia,  where  you  shall 
seize  upon  all  the  ships,  and,  coasting  along 
Gallicia  and  Portugal,  shall  pillage  all  the  mara- 
time  places  even  to  Lisbon,  where  you  shall  be 
supplied  with  all  necessaries  befitting  a  con 
queror.  By  Copsodie,  Spain  will  yield  ;  for 
they  are  but  a  race  of  boobies  !  Then  are  you 
to  pass  by  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  where  you 
shall  erect  two  pillars  more  stately  than  those 
of  Hercules,  to  the  perpetual  memory  of  your 
goodness,  and  the  narrow  entrance  there  shall 
be  called  the  Pichricolinal  Sea.  Having  passed 
the  Pichricoliual  Sea,  behold  Barbarossa  yields 
him  your  slave  !  And  you  shall  conquer  the 
kingdoms  of  Tunis,  of  Hippo,  Argia,  Bomine, 
Corone,  yea,  all  Barbary.  Furthermore,  you 
shall  take  into  your  hands  Majorca,  Minorca, 
Sardinia,  Corsica,  with  the  other  islands  of  the 
Ligustic  and  Balearian  seas.  Going  along  on 
the  left  hand,  you  shall  rule  all  Gallia,  Narbonen- 
sis,  Provence,  the  Allobrogrians,  Genoa,  Flor- 


142  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ence,  Lucca  ;  and  then — God  be  wi'  ye — Rome  ! 
Italy  being  thus  taken,  behold  Naples,  Calabria, 
Apulia,  and  Sicily,  all  ransacked,  and  Malta, 
too !  Thence  we  will  sail  eastward,  and  take 
Canadia,  Cyprus,  Rhodes,  and  the  Cyclade 
Islands,  and  set  upon  the  Morea.  It  is  ours, 
by  St.  Irenaeus !  and  the  Lord  preserve  Jerusa 
lem  !"  With  the  enumeration  of  Lesser  Asia 
and  the  entire  east  of  Europe,  the  imagination 
of  the  monarch  was  excited,  and  he  shouted, 
"  On,  on,  make  haste  my  lads,  and  let  him  that 
loves  me,  follow  me  !" 

No!  the  fertile  fancy  of  Rabelais,  in  the 
broadest  play  of  its  fun,  does  not  equal  the 
serious  doings  of  some  even  of  our  modern 
nations.  "  A  century  ago,"  says  the  latest 
Blackwood,  "  Russia,  still  in  the  infancy  of 
civilization,  was  scarcely  counted  in  the  great 
European  family.  Gigantic,  indeed,  have  been 
the  forward  strides  she  has  since  made,  in 
power,  influence,  and  territory.  On  every  side 
she  has  extended  herself;  Sweden,  Poland,  Tur 
key,  Persia,  have  all  in  turn  been  despoiled  or 
partially  robbed  by  her.  North  and  south  she 
has  seized  upon  some  of  the  mnsl  productive 


ANNEXATION.  143 

districts  of  Europe;  the  Baltic  provinces  on 
the  one  hand,  Bessarabia  and  the  Crimea  on 
the  other." 

Be  it  observed,  however,  in  justice  to  critic 
and  criticized  alike,  that  Russia  is  bashful,  self- 
denying,  almost  ascetic  in  her  lust  of  annexa 
tion,  compared  with  another  power,  which  we 
shall  not  name,  lest  we  should  shock  its  deli 
cate  sensibilities.  But  we  could  tell,  "an  we 
would,"  of  a  certain  little  island  of  the  North 
Atlantic,  in  itself  scarcely  bigger  than  a  bed 
spread,  yet  boasting  of  an  empire  on  which  the 
sun  never  sets.  It  has  annexed  to  its  slender 
chalk-cliffs,  from  year  to  year,  one  country 
after  another,  until  now  it  exclaims,  in  the 
pride  and  plenitude  of  its  dominion — 

"  Quse  regio  in  terris,  nostra  non  plena  laboris  ?'' 

which,  in  its  own  vernacular,  means,  "  on  what 
part  of  the  earth  have  we  not  gained  a  foot 
hold?"  In  Europe,  there  are  Scotland,  Ireland, 
the  Orkneys,  Gibraltar,  Malta,  Heligoland,  and 
the  Ionian  Isles ;  in  America,  there  are  Upper 
and  Lower  Canada,  Nova  Scotia,  Cape  Breton, 
New  Brunswick,  Prince  Edward's  Island,  New- 


144  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

foundland,  and  the  Bermudas ;  in  the  West 
Indies,  there  are  Jamaica,  Barbadoes,  St.  Vin 
cent,  Tobago,  Trinidad,  Antigua,  Dominica, 
the  Bahamas,  Guiana,  and  a  dozen  more ;  in 
Africa,  there  are  Good  Hope,  Mauritius,  Sierra 
Leone,  Gambia,  and  St.  Helena ;  in  Australia, 
there  are  New  South  Wales,  Western  Austra 
lia,  Southern  Australia,  and  Van  Dieman's 
Land ;  and  in  Asia,  there  are,  most  monstrous 
of  all,  Ceylon  and  India,  with  its  dependencies. 
Enough,  one  would  say,  in  all  conscience  for  a 
reasonable  ambition ;  but  it  is  not  enough  for 
the  people  of  that  little  island — that  model  of 
all  the  national  proprieties — which  omits  no 
opportunity  now  for  extending  its  possessions, 
and  almost  with  every  steamer  sends  us  word 
of  new  acquisitions  in  the  East ! 

Alas !  we  must  repeat  it,  annexation  is  not 
a  new  thing,  not  a  peculiarity  of  republicans, 
and  of  late  American  republicans,  in  particu 
lar;  not  in  any  sense  a  novel  iniquity  over 
which  we  are  just  called  to  moralize!  It  is  a 
practice  as  old  as  our  race  and  as  broad  as  our 
race ;  known  to  every  people  and  every  age ; 
and  as  invariable,  in  its  occurrence,  as  a  natural 


ANNEXATION.  145 

law.  Wherever  there  have  been  weak  nations 
to  pillage,  and  strong  nations  to  pillage  them ; 
wherever  there  have  been  men,  like  those 
splendid  robbers  of  antiquity,  willing  to  offer 
hecatombs  of  lives  to  their  insane  wrill  to  rule  ; 
wherever  there  have  been  chances  opened  to 
military  genius,  to  rapacious  selfishness,  to  the 
love  of  a  row,  to  the  hope  of  plunder,  to  the 
appetite  for  distinction  and  blood,  to  the  mere 
vague,  restless  feeling  for  movement  and  change 
— there  annexation  has  flourished.  But,  God 
in  heaven !  what  a  phantasmagoria  of  wrong, 
outrage,  and  despotism,  its  career  unfolds ! 
What  spoliations,  ravages,  wars,  subjugations, 
and  miseries  have  marked  its  course !  What 
crimson  pictures  it  has  painted  on  every  page 
of  almost  every  history !  How  the  whole  past, 
as  we  look  at  it,  comes  rushing  down  upon  our 
vision,  like  a  vast,  multitudinous,  many-wTinged 
army ;  with  savage  yells,  with  wild  piercing 
whoops,  with  ringing  war-cries,  with  sackbuts, 
arid  cymbals,  and  trumpets,  and  gongs,  and  the 
drowning  roar  of  cannon ;  naked  heroes,  shaggy 
sheep-skinned  warriors,  glittering  troops,  pha 
lanxes  and  serried  legions,  colossal  cavalries ; 


146  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

now  sweeping  like  frost-winds  across  the  plains 
— now  hanging  like  tempests  on  the  mountains 
— now  breaking  in  torrents  through  rocky  de 
files — and  now  roaring  like  seas  around  the 
walls  of  cities — onward  and  downward  they 
come,  irresistible,  stormy,  overwhelming :  the 
mighty  host,  the  stupendous  vanguard  of  never- 
ending  annexationists ! 

Note,  also,  that  it  is  not  in  conquest  alone 
that  this  spirit  of  aggrandizement  has  been  ex 
hibited;  for,  next  to  the  history  of  conquest, 
the  most  terrible  book  that  could  be  written 
would  be  a  narrative  of  national  colonization, 
or  of  the  peaceful  attempts  of  nations  to  create 
auxiliaries  on  distant  shores.  It  would  be  a 
second  Book  of  Martyrs,  eclipsing  in  atrocities 
the  rubric  of  Fox.  It  would  show  us  innumer 
able  homes,  in  all  lands,  made  vacant  by  forced, 
or,  quite  as  dreadful,  voluntary  exiles :  the 
pathways  across  the  lonely  seas,  lined,  like  the 
accursed  middle  passage  of  the  slave-trade, 
with  the  bones  of  victims  cast  down  to  watery 
deaths ;  the  inoffensive  natives  of  many  a  conti 
nent  and  island  driven  mercilessly,  by  intrud 
ers,  to  the  jungles,  or  the  swamps,  or  to  the 


ANNEXATION.  147 

solitary  fastnesses  of  the  mountains;  weary 
years  of  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  intruders 
themselves  against  disease,  against  poverty, 
against  capricious  and  persecuting  climates  and 
intractable  soils,  and  against  the  cruel  extor 
tions  and  oppressions  of  remote  administrations ; 
and,  as  the  end  of  all,  failure,  in  its  worst 
forms,  of  industrial  bankruptcy  and  social  ruin. 
Now,  compared  with  the  Brobdignagian 
scoundrelism  of  the  older  nations,  both  in  the 
way  of  conquest  and  colonization,  what  have 
we  poor  republican  Americans  done?  Why 
are  we  stigmatized,  as  offenders  above  all 
others,  or  as  the  special  representatives  of  that 
national  avidus  alienum,  which  confesses  neither 
limit  nor  principle  ?  We  have,  since  the  com 
mencement  of  our  political  existence,  perfected 
three  things  :  we  have  entered  the  lands  of  the 
Indians ;  we  have  acquired  Louisiana,  Florida, 
and  Texas ;  and  we  have  beaten  Mexico  out  of 
California  and  a  few  other  morsels  of  earth ;  to 
which  let  us  add,  that  a  few  wild  fellows  of  us 
meditate  some  time  or  other  getting  possession 
of  Cuba,  and,  perhaps,  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
That  is  positively  the  front  and  substance  of  all 


148  POLITIC  AI    ESSAYS. 

our  trespasses !    But  in  what  manner  have  they 
been  committed  ? 

No  one,  we  suppose,  will  question  the  pro 
priety  of  our  mode  of  acquiring  Florida  and 
Louisiana,  which  were  purchased  honorably  in 
the  open  market ;  therefore  we  will  begin  with 
the  poor  Indians.  We  have  robbed  them  of 
their  lands,  it  is  said.  But  it  is  not  so ;  not  a 
rood  of  their  land  have  we  which  has  not  been 
honestly  paid  for,  and  more  than  paid  for,  as 
land  goes,  and  a  thousand  times  paid  for  in 
superior  returns!  De  Tocqueville  made  this 
charge  in  his  book,  and  led  Mr.  Benton,  who 
was  then  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  to 
call  for  a  full  "  numerical  and  chronological 
official  statement  of  all  our  dealings  with  the 
Indians,  from  the  origin  of  the  federal  govern 
ment  in  1789  to  his  day,  1840,"  which  he  pro 
cured  from  the  department,  making  a  full  and 
accurate  list  of  every  acre  that  we  had  ever 
taken  from  any  Indian  tribe  or  individual. 
What  is  the  result  ?  Why,  it  appears  from  the 
document,  that  the  United  States  had  paid  to 
the  Indians  eighty-five  millions  of  dollars  for 
land  purchases  up  to  the  year  1840,  to  which 


ANNEXATION.  149 

five  or  six  millions  may  be  added  for  purchases 
since — say  ninety  millions.  This  is  near  six 
times  as  much  as  the  United  States  gave  Na 
poleon  for  Louisiana,  the  whole  of  it,  soil  and 
jurisdiction,  and  nearly  three  times  as  much 
as  all  three  of  the  great  foreign  purchases — 
Louisiana,  Florida,  and  California — cost  us ! 
and  that  for  soil  alone,  and  for  so  much  as 
would  only  be  a  fragment  of  Louisiana  or  Cali 
fornia.  "  Impressive,"  says  the  distinguished 
statesman,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  this 
exposition  of  an  Indian  policy,  "  as  this  state 
ment  is  in  the  gross,  it  becomes  more  so  in 
the  detail,  and  when  applied  to  the  particular 
tribes  whose  imputed  sufferings  have  drawn  so 
mournful  a  picture  from  Mons.  de  Tocque- 
ville."  Fifty-six  millions  went  to  the  four 
large  tribes,  the"*  Creeks,  the  Cherokees,  the 
Choctaws,  and  the  Chickasaws,  leaving  thirty- 
six  millions  to  go  to  the  small  tribes  whose 
names  are  unknown  to  history,  and  which  it  is 
probable  the  writer  on  American  democracy 
had  never  heard  of  when  sketching  the  picture 
of  their  fancied  oppressions.  Mr.  Benton  adds, 
in  respect  of  these  small  remote  tribes,  that, 


150  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

besides  their  proportion  of  the  remaining  thirty- 
six  millions  of  dollars,  they  received  a  kind  of 
compensation  suited  to  their  condition,  and  in 
tended  to  induct  them  into  the  comforts  of 
civilized  life.  He  gives  one  example  of  this 
drawn  from  a  treaty  with  the  Osages  in  1839, 
which  was  only  in  addition  to  similar  benefits 
to  the  same  tribe  in  previous  treaties,  and 
which  were  extended  to  all  the  tribes  which 
were  in  the  hunting-state.  These  benefits  were, 
"two  blacksmith-shops,  with  four  blacksmiths, 
five  hundred  pounds  of  iron,  and  sixty  pounds 
of  steel  annually ;  a  grist  and  a  saw-mill,  with 
millers  for  the  same;  1,000  cows  and  calves; 
2,000  breeding  swine;  1,000  ploughs;  1,000 
sets  of  horse-gear ;  1,000  axes;  1,000  hoes;  a 
house  each  for  ten  chiefs,  costing  two  hundred 
dollars  a  piece ;  with  six  good  wagons,  sixteen 
carts,  twenty-eight  yokes  of  oxen,  with  yokes 
and  log-chains  for  each  chief;  besides  agreeing 
to  pay  all  claims  for  injuries  committed  by  the 
tribe  on  the  white  people,  or  on  other  Indians, 
to  the  amount  of  thirty  thousand  dollars  ;  to 
purchase  their  reserved  lands  at  two  dollars  per 
acre;  and  to  give  them  six  thousand  dollars 


ANNEXATION.  151 

more  for  certain  old  annuities.  In  previous 
treaties  had  been  given  seed  grains  and  seed 
vegetables,  with  fruit  seed  and  fruit  trees, 
domestic  fowls,  laborers  to  plough  up  their 
ground  and  to  make  their  fences,  to  raise  crops 
and  save  them,  and  teach  the  Indians  how  to 
farm ;  with  spinning,  weaving,  and  sewing  im 
plements,  and  persons  to  show  their  use."  Now 
all  this,  observes  our  authority,  was  in  one 
single  treaty,  with  an  inconsiderable  tribe, 
which  had  been  largely  provided  for  in  the 
same  way  in  six  different  previous  treaties! 
But  all  the  rude  tribes — those  in  the  hunting- 
state,  or  just  emerging  from  it — were  provided 
for  with  equal  solicitude  and  liberality,  the 
object  of  the  United  States  being  to  train  them 
to  agriculture  and  pasturage,  to  conduct  them 
from  the  hunting  to  the  pastoral  and  the  agri 
cultural  state.  Not  confining  its  care,  however, 
to  this,  and  in  addition  to  all  other  benefits,  the 
United  States  have  undertaken  the  support  of 
schools,  the  encouragement  of  missionaries,  and 
a  small  annual  contribution  to  religious  socie 
ties  who  take  charge  of  their  civilization.  More 
over,  the  government  keeps  up  a  large  estab- 


152  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

lishment  for  the  special  care  of  the  Indians, 
and  the  management  of  their  affairs ;  a  special 
bureau,  presided  over  by  a  commissioner  at 
Washington  City;  superintendents  in  different 
districts ;  agents,  sub-agents,  and  interpreters, 
resident  with  the  tribe ;  and  all  charged  with 
seeing  to  their  rights  and  interests — seeing  that 
the  laws  are  observed  towards  them;  that  no 
injuries  are  done  them  by  the  whites ;  that 
none  but  licensed  traders  go  among  them;  that 
nothing  shall  be  bought  from  them  which  is 
necessary  for  their  comfort,  nor  anything  sold 
to  them  which  may  be  to  their  detriment.  Had 
the  republic  been  actuated,  in  its  intercourse, 
by  any  of  that  selfish  and  infernal  spirit  which 
animates  the  old  monarchies,  it  would  have 
swindled  or  beaten  the  Indians  out  of  their 
possessions  at  once,  and,  in  case  of  resistance, 
put  the  whole  race  to  the  sword. 

But  it  will  be  answered,  "  You  have  carried 
them  by  force,  from  their  ancient  homes,  from 
the  graves  of  their  sires,  and  planted  them  in 
new  and  distant  regions  !"  We  reply,  that  we 
have  done  so,  in  the  case  of  a  few  tribes,  or, 
rather,  remnants  of  tribes,  as  a  matter  of  abso- 


ANNEXATION.  153 

lute  necessity,  and  not  in  any  grasping  or  un 
kind  spirit.  A  small,  but  savage  and  intractable 
race  suddenly  surrounded  by  a  powerful  and 
civilized  people,  whose  laws  and  customs  it 
cannot  or  will  not  accept,  but  whose  vices  are 
readily  spread  among  them,  has  no  other  des 
tiny  but  to  die  of  its  corruptions,  to  perish  in 
arms,  or  to  be  removed  by  gentle  methods  to 
some  more  remote  and  untroubled  hunting- 
grounds.  It  was  at  the  option  of  the  United 
States  to  choose  either  of  these  courses,  and  its 
choice,  on  the  advice  of  Jefferson,  whose  noble 
fortune  it  has  been  to  initiate  so  much  of  our 
most  wise  and  beneficent  policy,  fell  upon  the 
most  humane,  peaceful,  and  considerate  of  the 
three.  Indeed,  the  language  in  which  this  plan 
was  urged,  in  the  second  inaugural  address  of 
the  eminent  democrat  we  have  just  named, 
may  be  used  also  as  the  language  of  the  history 
which  records  its  execution?  "  The  aborigines 
of  these  countries,"  said  he,  "  I  have  regarded 
with  the  consideration  their  position  inspires. 
Endowed  with  the  faculties  and  the  rights  of 
men,  breathing  an  ardent  love  of  liberty  and 
independence,  and  occupying  a  country  which 


154  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

left  them  no  desire  but  to  be  undisturbed,  the 
streams  of  overflowing  population  from  other 
regions  directed  itself  on  these  shores.  With 
out  power  to  divert,  or  habits  to  contend 
against  it,  they  have  been  overwhelmed  by  the 
current,  or  driven  before  it.  Now  reduced 
within  limits  too  narrow  for  the  hunter-state, 
humanity  enjoins  us  to  teach  them  agriculture 
and  the  domestic  arts — to  encourage  them  to 
that  industry  which  alone  can  enable  them  to 
maintain  their  place  in  existence,  and  to  pre 
pare  them  in  time  for  that  state  of  society 
which,  to  bodily  comforts,  adds  the  improve 
ment  of  the  mind  and  morals."  We  have, 
therefore,  liberally  furnished  them  with  the 
implements  of  husbandry  and  householding ; 
we  have  placed  instructors  amongst  them  in 
the  arts  of  first  necessity ;  and  they  are  covered 
with  the  aegis  of  the  law  against  agressors  from 
among  ourselves.  A  few  stubborn  individuals, 
misled  by  prejudice  or  ambition,  and  carrying 
with  them  fragments  of  their  tribes,  have  re 
sisted  the  inevitable  fate  of  their  race,  and  have 
compelled  our  authorities  to  subdue  them  by 
arms ;  but  the  greater  part  of  the  tribes  have 


ANNEXATION.  155 

gone  to  their  new  homes  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi  cheerfully,  and  in  peace.  Some,  like 
the  Cherokees,  have  been  raised  to  a  higher 
civilization;  and  all  are  in  a  condition  superior 
to  that  in  which  they  were  found  by  our 
people. 

The  annexation  of  Texas,  secondly,  it  is 
needless  to  dwell  upon,  because  it  was  an 
event  so  inevitable  as  a  historical  development, 
and  so  clear  in  all  its  principles,  that  it  requires 
no  justification.  A  bordering  people,  in  the 
natural  increase  of  population  and  trade,  settle 
in  a  foreign  state,  where  they  acquire  property 
and  rear  families  ;  they  gradually  become  citi 
zens,  and  look  upon  the  place  as  their  home ; 
but  they  are  oppressed  by  the  government,  and 
rise  in  revolt ;  they  carry  on  a  successful  revo 
lution  ;  they  organize  and  maintain  a  free  and 
stable  government ;  they  are  acknowledged  as 
independent  by  all  the  leading  powers  of  Chris 
tendom  ;  and  then,  to  secure  themselves  from 
external  assault,  and  to  acquire  additional  in 
ternal  strength — led,  too,  by  old  and  natural 
affinities — they  seek  a  constitutional  alliance 
with  the  people  to  whom  they  formerly  be- 


156  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

longed,  and  are  still  cordially  attached.  That 
is  the  whole  history  of  Texas ;  and  we  see 
nothing,  in  our  yielding  to  her  request  for  ad 
mission  to  the  rights  and  protection  of  the 
Federal  Union,  that  is  in  the  least  extraordi 
nary,  or  atrocious,  or  greedy.  As  a  question 
of  domestic  policy,  the  annexation  may  have 
properly  divided  opinion ;  but  as  a  question  of 
international  relations,  nothing  could  have  been 
more  simply  and  obviously  just. 

Again  :  in  respect  to  conquests,  we  have  but 
one  to  answer  for — that  of  Mexico  ;  and  there 
is  nothing  in  either  the  commencement,  the 
course,  or  the  end  of  that — if  even  it  may  be 
called  a  conquest — for  which  the  lover  of  his 
country  or  humanity  needs  to  blush.  It  was 
a  regular  war,  begun  in  vindication  of  the 
clearest  national  rights,  which  had  been  out 
raged  ;  carried  on  with  vigor,  but  with  the 
strictest  regard,  also,  to  the  most  just  and  hon 
orable  principles ;  and  closed  by  a  deliberate 
treaty,  in  which,  though  it  was  in  our  power  to 
confiscate  the  whole  nation,  by  reducing  it  to 
the  state  of  a  dependent  province,  we  refrained 
from  all  arbitrary  or  exorbitant  demands,  and 


ANNEXATION.  157 

agreed  to  pay  generously  for  every  acre  of  land 
that  we  retained,  and  for  every  iota  of  loss  we 
had  occasioned.  It  is  true  that  the  territories 
thus  acquired,  proved,  subsequently,  through 
their  unexampled  mineral  deposits,  to  be  of 
priceless  worth ;  but  this  peculiar  source  of 
value  was  unsuspected  at  the  time,  while  it  is 
probable  that,  if  they  had  remained  in  the  same 
hands,  they  might  have  been  unknown  to  this 
day. 

Compare,  then,  the  "annexation"  of  the 
United  States,  for  which  it  is  so  largely  ridi 
culed,  or  so  roundly  abused,  with  the  same 
process  as  it  has  been  conducted  by  other  na 
tions  !  Not  writh  those  predatory  expeditions 
of  the  magnificent  bandits  of  the  East;  not 
with  the  Roman  conquests,  which  were  inces 
sant  scenes  of  violence  and  tyranny ;  not  with 
the  irruptions  of  the  northern  hordes,  whose 
boast  it  was  that  no  grass  grew  where  they  had 
trod ;  not  with  the  merciless  and  gory  marches 
of  Pizarro  or  Cortes,  because  those  were  the 
deeds  of  rude  and  brutal  ages ;  nor  yet,  even 
with  the  stormy  anabasis  and  katabasis,  as  De 
Quincy  somewhere  calls  it,  when 


158  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 

"  The  Emperor  Nap.  he  did  set  off 
On  a  pleasant  excursion  to  Moscow  ;" 

but  compare  it  with  the  more  modern,  and 
therefore,  we  may  suppose,  the  more  just  and 
humane  management  of  their  external  relations, 
by  any  of  the  most  advanced  nations  of  Europe  ! 
With  the  treatment  of  Algiers  by  the  French, 
for  instance ;  or  of  Poland  by  Russia  ;  or  of 
Hungary  and  Italy  by  Austria ;  or  of  Ireland 
and  India  by  England!  We  shall  see  the  latter 
subduing,  plundering,  depopulating,  wherever 
they  spread  ;  maintaining  their  supremacy  only 
by  armies  of  functionaries  and  soldiers,  who 
consume  the  substance  and  blast  the  industry 
of  their  dependents ;  and  shaping  their  entire 
policy  with  a  single  eye  to  their  own  interests. 
We  shall  see,  also,  that  they  are  hated  and 
cursed,  with  unrelenting  bitterness,  by  their 
victims.  On  the  other  side,  WE  own  no  sub 
ject  nations,  no  colonial  victims,  no  trembling 
provinces — and  we  never  desire  to  own  them  ; 
we  waste  no  fields,  we  ruin  no  cities,  we  ex 
haust  no  distant  settlements  :  the  weak  Indian 
tribes  among  us,  we  have  striven  to  redeem 
and  civilize  ;  the  weak  Mexican  and  Spanish 


ANNEXATION.  159 

races  about  us,  a  prey  to  anarchy  and  misrule, 
we  offer  the  advantages  of  stable  government, 
of  equal  laws,  of  a  flourishing  and  refined  social 
life ;  and  we  aim  at  no  alliances  which  are  not 
founded  on  the  broadest  principles  of  reciprocal 
justice  and  goodwill.  Away,  then,  with  the 
base  calumnies  which  hold  us  up  to  the  world 
as  a  nation  of  reckless  filibusters  !  Away  with 
the  European  cant  of  the  invading  tendencies 
of  republicanism ! 

"Our  past,  at  least,"  as  Webster  said,  "is 
secure."  It  brings  no  crimson  to  our  cheeks : 
not,  however,  that  our  people  are  any  better 
in  themselves  than  other  people — human  nature, 
we  suppose,  being  much  the  same  everywhere 
— but  because  our  free  and  open  institutions, 
through  which  the  convictions  of  men,  and  not 
the  interests  of  monarchs  or  families,  are  ex 
pressed,  incite  no  sinister  and  iniquitous  pro 
ceedings.  The  glory  of  Kepublicanism  is,  that 
it  is  above-board,  reflecting  solely  the  extant 
wisdom  and  justice  of  the  aggregate  of  its 
supporters.* 

*  It  is  honorable,  in  one  sense,  and  yet  humiliating,  in 
another,  to  confess  that  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  United 


160  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Thus  far,  we  have  only  disposed  of  the  in 
vectives  of  foreigners,  showing  what  gratuitous 
and  unfounded  malice  they  are ;  but  we  have 
yet  to  consider  our  subject  in  its  most  import 
ant  aspect  —  its  bearings  upon  the  external 
policy  of  the  state.  The  annexation  of  con 
tiguous  territories,  in  one  shape  or  another,  is 
a  question  that  must  constantly  arise  in  the 
course  of  our  progress,  and  it  is  well  for  us  to 
know  the  true  principles  on  which  it  should  be 
managed. 

From  the  time  that  Adam  was  sent  out  of 
the  sunset  gate  of  Eden,  down  to  the  exodus 
of  the  Pilgrims,  and  the  hegira  from  all  lands 
into  the  golden  reservoirs  of  California,  there 
appears  to  have  been  a  decided  movement 
southward  and  westward,  of  the  populations  of 
the  world.  It  was  never  constant  and  con 
tinuous,  and  yet,  contemplated  in  large  epochs, 
it  was  always  discernible.  By  natural  growth, 
by  the  multiplying  ties  of  trade,  by  warlike 
excursions,  by  voluntary  migrations,  by  revolu 
tions,  and  by  colonizations,  the  superior  races 

States  yet,  in  the  way  of  extinguishing  a  foreign  people,  was 
the  celebrated  bombardment  of  Grey  town. 


ANNEXATION.  161 

of  the  great  central  cradles  of  Western  Asia 
have  spread,  pursuing  the  paths  of  the  sun, 
until  they  now  quite  circle  the  globe.  Nor  is 
there  any  reason  for  believing  that  this  diffusive 
connatus  will  be  stopped,  while  there  remains  a 
remotest  island,  or  secluded  western  nook,  to 
be  reduced  to  the  reception  of  Christianity  and 
European  arts.  An  instinct  in  the  human  soul, 
deeper  than  the  wisdom  of  politics,  more 
powerful  than  the  sceptres  of  states,  impels 
the  people  on,  to  the  accomplishment  of  that 
high  destiny  which  Providence  has  plainly  re 
served  for  our  race. 

Annexation  thus  being  an  inevitable  fact,  it 
would  be  in  vain  for  the  American  people  to 
resist  the  impulses  which  are  bearing  all  na 
tions  onward,  to  a  closer  union.  Nor,  when 
we  consider  the  attitude  in  which  we  are  placed 
towards  other  nations  of  the  earth,  is  it  desirable 
for  us,  or  them,  that  this  influence  should  be 
resisted.  As  the  inheritors  of  whatever  is  best 
in  modern  civilization ;  possessed  of  a  political 
and  social  polity  which  we  deem  superior  to 
every  other ;  carrying  with  us,  wherever  we 
go,  the  living  seeds  of  freedom,  of  intelligence, 


162  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  religion ;  our  advent  everywhere,  but  par 
ticularly  among  the  savage  and  stationary  tribes 
who  are  nearest  to  us,  must  be  a  redemption 
and  a  blessing.  South  America  and  the  islands 
of  the  sea  ought  to  rise  up  to  meet  us  at  our 
coming,  and  the  desert  and  the  solitary  places 
be  glad  that  the  hour  for  breaking  their  fatal 
enchantments,  the  hour  of  their  emancipation, 
had  arrived. 

If  the  Canadas,  or  the  provinces  of  South  or 
Central  America,  were  gathered  into  our  Union, 
by  this  gradual  and  natural  absorption,  by  this 
species  of  national  endosmosis,  they  would  at 
once  spring  into  new  life.  In  respect  to  the 
former,  the  contrasts  presented  by  the  river  St. 
Lawrence,  which  Lord  Durham  described,  and 
which  are  not  yet  effaced,  would  speedily  dis 
appear.  "  On  the  American  side,"  he  says, 
"  all  is  activity  and  bustle.  The  forests  have 
been  widely  cleared ;  every  year  numerous 
settlements  are  formed,  and  thousands  of  farms 
are  created  out  of  the  waste ;  the  country  is 
intersected  by  roads.  On  the  British  side,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  favored  spots,  where 
some  approach  to  American  prosperity  is  ap- 


ANNEXATION.  163 

parent,  all  seems  waste  and  desolate.  .  .  The 
ancient  city  of  Montreal,  which  is  naturally  the 
capital  of  Canada,  will  not  bear  the  least  com 
parison  in  any  respect  with  Buffalo,  which  is  a 
creation  of  yesterday.  But  it  is  not  in  the 
difference  between  the  larger  towns  on  the  two 
sides  that  we  shall  find  the  best  evidence  of 
our  inferiority.  That  painful  but  undeniable 
truth  is  most  manifest  in  the  country  districts, 
through  which  the  line  of  national  separation 
passes  for  a  thousand  miles.  There  on  the  side 
of  both  the  Canadas,  and  also  of  New  Bruns 
wick  and  Nova  Scotia,  a  widely  scattered  po 
pulation,  poor,  and  apparently  unenterprising, 
though  hardy  and  industrious,  separated  by 
tracts  of  intervening  forests,  without  town  or 
markets,  almost  without  roads,  living  in  mean 
houses,  drawing  little  more  than  a  rude  subsist 
ence  from  ill-cultivated  land,  and  seemingly 
incapable  of  improving  their  condition,  present 
the  most  instructive  contrast  to  their  enterpris 
ing  and  thriving  neighbors  on  the  American 
side." 

The  Canadas   have  rapidly  improved  since 
Durham  wrote,  galvanized  into  action  chiefly 


164  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

by  American  example  and  energy,  and  the 
larger  freedom  they  now  enjoy ;  but  what 
might  not  their  development  be  if  wholly 
emancipated  and  republicanized  ?  Or,  still 
more,  in  respect  to  the  silent  and  barren  regi 
ons  of  the  southern  continent,  what  magical 
transformations  a  change  of  political  relations 
would  evoke  !  The  rich  wastes  given  over  to 
the  vulture  and  the  serpent — where  the  sun 
shine  and  air  of  the  most  delicious  climate  fall 
upon  a  desolation — would  blossom  and  put 
forth  like  the  golden-fruited  Hesperides,  open 
ing  a  glorious  asylum  to  the  over-crowded 
labor  of  southern  Europe  ;  the  immense  rivers, 
which  now  hear  no  sound,  save  their  own  com 
plaining  moan  as  they  woo  in  vain  the  churlish 
banks  that  spurn  their  offers  of  service,  would 
then  laugh  with  ships,  and  go  rejoicing  to  the 
sea ;  the  palsy-smitten  villages,  broken  into 
pieces  before  they  are  built,  would  teem  like 
hives  with  "  singing-masons  building  golden 
eaves  ;"  and  the  scarcely  human  societies,  lep 
rous  with  indolence,  or  alternately  benumbed 
by  despotism,  or  convulsed  by  wild,  anarchical 
throes,  would  file  harmoniously  into  order,  and, 


ANNEXATION.  165 

like  enchanted  armies,  when  the  spells  of  the 
sorcerers  are  gone,  take  up  a  march  of  tri 
umph  : 

"  Such  power  there  is  in  heavenly  polity." 

Nor  would  the  incorporation  of  these  foreign 
ingredients  into  our  body — we  mean  by  regular 
and  pacific  methods,  by  a  normal  and  organic 
assimilation,  and  not  by  any  extraneous  force 
or  fraud — swell  us  out  to  an  unmanageable  and 
plethoric  size.  It  is  the  distinctive  beauty  of 
our  political  structure,  rightly  interpreted,  that 
it  admits  of  an  almost  indefinite  extension  of 
the  parts  without  detriment  to  the  whole.  In 
the  older  nations,  where  the  governments  as 
sume  to  do  everything,  an  increase  of  dimen 
sions  is  always  accompanied  by  an  increase  of 
danger — the  head  is  unable  to  control  the  ex 
tremities,  which  fly  off  into  a  St.  Vitus's  dance 
of  revolution,  or  the  extremities  are  paralyzed, 
through  a  congestion  of  despotic  power  in  the 
head.  But  with  us  there  is  no  such  liability  : 
the  political  power,  dispersed  and  localized,  the 
currents  of  influence  pass  reciprocally  from  the 
centre  to  the  circumference,  and  from  the  cir- 


166  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

cumference  to  the  centre,  as  in  the  circulation 
of  the  blood ;  and  whether  the  number  of 
members  in  the  system  be  more  or  less,  the  re 
lations  of  strength  between  them  and  the  head 
remain  pretty  much  the  same ;  or,  rather,  as 
our  federal  force  is  the  net  result  and  quotient 
of  the  contributions  of  the  separate  states,  it 
is  rather  strengthened  than  weakened  by  the 
addition  of  new  elements.  Our  circle  of  thirty- 
one  integers  works  as  harmoniously  as  it  did 
when  it  was  composed  of  only  thirteen,  while 
the  probability  of  rupture  is  lessened,  from  the 
greater  number  which  are  interested  in  the 
Union.  A  powerful  community,  like  New  York 
or  Ohio,  might  have  its  own  way  opposed  to 
a  mere  handful  of  smaller  communities ;  but 
opposed  to  a  vast  network  of  communities, 
though  never  so  small  in  themselves,  it  would 
be  compelled  to  listen  to  reason.  Indeed,  the 
dangers  likely  to  arise  in  the  practical  workings 
of  our  system  will  result  from  an  excessive 
centripetal,  rather  than  centrifugal,  tendency, 
and  the  annexation  of  new  states  is,  therefore, 
one  of  the  best  correctives  of  the  vice. 

But  be  that  as   it   may,  it  is  clear  that  we 


ANNEXATION.  167 

must  maintain  some  relations  to  the  other  na 
tions  of  the  world,  either  under  the  existing 
international  law,  or  by  treaty,  or  else  by  regu 
lar  constitutional  agreement.  Now,  which  of 
the  three  is  the  best?  International  law,  as 
we  all  know,  is  the  merest  figment  in  practice, 
proverbially  uncertain  in  its  principles,  without 
sanctions  or  penalties,  and  wholly  ineffective 
when  it  conflicts  with  the  will  of  powerful 
states,  of  which  fact  the  whole  continent  of 
Europe  is  witness.  Treaties  of  amity  and  com 
merce  are  often  only  temporary,  and  may  be 
abrogated  at  the  option  of  the  parties  to  them, 
or  openly  violated,  when  one  of  the  parties  is 
strong  and  unscrupulous,  But  a  constitutional 
union,  an  eternal  and  brotherly  league  of  inde 
pendent  and  equal  sovereignties,  is  the  most 
permanent,  peaceful,  and  unoppressive  in  which 
states  can  be  joined — the  wisest,  strongest,  and 
happiest  relation  that  can  be  instituted  among 
civilized  nations. 

The  fears,  therefore,  that  some  express  at 
our  assumed  velocity  and  breadth  of  expansion, 
are  ill-founded,  unmanly,  and  un-American. 
If  we  ever  had  swept,  or  were  likely  to  sweep 


168  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

over  the  earth,  sirocco-wise,  drinking  the  dews, 
withering  the  grass,  blearing  the  eyes  of  men, 
or  blistering  their  bodies,  there  would  then  be 
some  excuse  for  such  apprehensions ;  if  we 
proposed,  as  a  few  insane  propagandists  do,  to 
carry  the  slavery  of  the  southern  states  abroad, 
to  blight,  by  its  pestilent  influences,  the  golden 
tropics  ;  or,  if  in  the  might  and  intensity  of  the 
centrifugal  impulse  there  were  danger  of  dislo 
cating  our  own  system,  whirling  the  fragments 
off  into  measureless  space,  it  would  become  the 
character  of  every  patriot  to  shout  a  halt.  But 
Caucasians  as  we  are,  carrying  the  best  blood 
of  time  in  our  veins — Anglo-Saxons,  the  inherit 
ors  of  the  richest  and  profoundest  civiliza 
tions  :  Puritans,  whose  religion  is  their  most 
imperishable  conviction  :  native  Yankees  of  in 
domitable  enterprise,  and  a  capacity  for  govern 
ment  and  self-government,  which  masters  every 
element — the  effeminacy  of  climate,  the  mad 
ness  of  gold-hunting,  the  spite  and  rage  of  seas 
and  winds — we  go  forth  as  a  beneficent,  not  a 
destructive  agency  ;  as  the  bearers  of  life,  not 
death,  to  the  prostrate  nations — to  the  over 
ripe  or  the  under-ripe  alike — to  all  who  lie  on 


ANNEXATION.  169 

the  margins  of  Bethesda,  waiting  for  the  good 
strong  arm  to  thrust  them  in  the  invigorating 
pool. 

Precisely,  however,  because  this  tendency  to 
the  assimilation  of  foreign  ingredients,  or  to 
the  putting  forth  of  new  members,  is  an  inevi 
table  incident  of  our  growth — because,  too,  of 
the  manifest  advantages  to  all  concerned — there 
is  no  need  that  it  should  be  specially  fostered 
or  stimulated.  It  wrill  thrive  of  itself:  it  will 
supply  the  fuel  of  its  own  fires ;  and  all  that  it 
requires  is  only  a  wise  direction.  A  masterly 
inactivity  is  here  emphatically  the  rule  ;  for  it 
will  better  secure  us  the  desired  result  than 
the  noisy,  proselytizing,  buccaneering  zeal  of 
over-hasty  demagogues.  The  fruit  will  fall 
into  our  hands  when  it  is  ripe,  without  an  offi 
cious  shaking  of  the  tree.  Cuba  will  be  ours, 
and  Canada  and  Mexico,  too — if  we  want  them 
— in  due  season,  and  without  the  wicked  imper 
tinence  of  a  war.  Industry,  commerce,  silent 
migrations,  the  winning  example  of  high  pros 
perity,  and  of  a  freedom  which  sports  like  the 
winds  around  an  Order  which  is  as  firm  as  the 

Pyramids,  are  grappling  them  by  unseen  ties, 

8 


170  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  drawing  them  closer  each  day,  and  binding 
them  in  a  unity  of  intercourse,  of  interest  and 
of  friendship,  from  which  they  will  soon  find  it 
impossible  to  break,  if  they  would,  and  from 
which,  also,  very  soon,  they  would  not  break 
if  they  could.  Let  us,  then,  await  patiently  the 
dowries  of  time,  whose  promises  are  so  com 
placent  and  decided, 

"  Nor  weave  with  bloody  hands  the  tissue  of  our  line." 

It  should  be,  moreover,  always  borne  in 
mind,  as  the  truth  most  certain  of  all  the  truths 
that  have  been  demonstrated  by  the  experience 
of  nations,  that  their  home  policy,  their  do 
mestic  relations,  their  internal  development,  the 
concentration,  not  the  dispersion,  of  their 
energies,  are  the  objects  to  which  they  should 
devote  their  first  and  last,  most  earnest  and 
best  regards.  It  is  the  most  miserable  and 
ruinous  of  all  ambitions  which  leads  nations 
into  dreams  of  external  domination  and  power. 
The  wars  they  engender,  deadly  as  they 
may  be,  are  comparatively  nothing  to  the 
sapping  drains  and  sluices  they  open  in 
the  whole  body,  and  every  limb  and  mem- 


ANNEXATION.  171 

ber  of  the  state.  "  Ships,  colonies,  and  com 
merce,"  has  been  the  cry  of  the  Old  World 
cabinets,  and  the  effects  are  seen  in  bankrupt 
cies,  in  Pelions-upon-Ossas  of  debt,  in  rotten 
courts,  in  degraded  and  impoverished  peoples, 
and  in  oppressed  and  decaying  neighbor- 
nations. 

France,  for  instance,  instead  of  giving  a 
chance  to  her  thirty-six  millions  of  lively  and 
industrious  people,  to  recover  and  enrich  their 
soils,  to  open  roads,  to  make  navigable  their 
streams,  and  to  build  themselves  up  in  know 
ledge  and  virtue,  has  ever  been  smitten  with  an 
insane  love  of  foreign  influence ;  but  might 
rather  have  been  smitten  with  the  plague.  She 
has  overrun  and  ruined  Lombardy ;  she  has 
overrun  and  paralyzed,  if  not  ruined,  the  Ne 
therlands  and  Holland ;  she  has  overrun  and 
arrested  the  civilization  of  Catalonia  ;  she  has 
overrun  and  deeply  wounded  Belgium  ;  she  has 
been  the  perpetual  enemy  of  the  free  cities  of 
Germany,  stirring  up  thirty  years  war,  and  as 
sisting  Austria  in  infamous  schemes  of  destruc 
tion ;  she  has  invaded  Genoa,  Sieily,  Venice, 
Corsica,  Rome,  suppressing  them  time  and 


172  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

again  with  her  armies ;  she  hangs  like  a  night 
mare  upon  Algeria ;  she  maintains  penal  colo 
nies  at  Guiana — and  all  with  what  gain  to 
herself?  With  what  gain  ?  Look  at  the  semi- 
barbarism  of  her  almost  feudal  rural  popula 
tion  ;  at  the  ignorance,  licentiousness,  and 
crime  of  her  cities  ;  at  her  vast  agricultural 
resources,  not  only  not  developed,  but  laden 
with  taxes  and  debt ;  at  her  unstable  govern 
ments,  shifting  like  the  forms  of  a  kaleidoscope  ; 
at  her  Jacqueries,  her  St.  Bartholomews,  her 
dragonades,  her  Coups  d'Etat;  her  fusiladed 
legislators,  and  her  exiled  men  of  science,  and 
her  poets  !  France,  under  a  true  decentralized 
freedom,  with  the  amazing  talents  of  her  quick 
witted  and  amiable  people,  left  to  the  construc 
tion  of  their  own  fortunes,  might  now  have 
been  a  century  in  advance  of  where  she  is  ;  but 
she  followed  the  ignis  fatmis  of  glory,  of  power 
abroad  instead  of  industry  and  peace  at  home ! 
England,  too,  in  spite  of  her  noble  qualities 
and  gigantic  industry,  has  depopulated  Ireland, 
starved  India,  ruined  her  West  India  islands, 
and  half  hamstrung  the  Canadas,  in  order  to 
make  distant  markets  for  her  trade,  and  yet,  her 


ANNEXATION.  173 

poor  at  home  are  imbruted,  half-starved,  earn 
ing  only  one-tenth  of  what  they  might  for  her, 
while  younger  and  freer  nations  are  enticing 
away  the  commerce  of  the  very  dependencies 
which  it  has  taken  whole  generations  of  wrong, 
torture,  and  bloodshed  to  create  ! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  United  States,  re 
fraining  from  the  spoliation  of  her  neighbors, 
devoting  herself  steadily  to  the  tasks  of  indus 
try  set  before  her,  welcoming  the  people  of  all 
nations,  poor  and  rich,  restricting  government 
to  its  simplest  duties,  securing  every  man  by 
equal  laws,  and  giving  to  every  citizen  oppor 
tunities  of  honor,  fortune,  self-culture — has,  in 
a  short  fifty  years,  overtaken  the  most  advanced 
nations,  has  left  the  others  far  in  the  rear,  and, 
in  less  than  ten  years  from  the  date  at  which 
we  write,  will  take  her  stand  as  the  first  nation 
of  the  earth — without  a  rival — without  a  peer, 
as  we  hope  without  an  enemy — but,  whether 
with  or  without  enemies,  able,  single-handed, 
to  dictate  her  terms,  on  any  question,  to  a  leash 
of  the  self-seeking  and  decrepit  monarchies  of 
Europe.  By  not  aiming  at  foreign  aggrandize 
ment,  of  which  she  is  so  often  recklessly  ac- 


174  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

cused,  she  has  reached  a  position  which  puts 
it  easily  in  her  power.  Her  strength  has  been 
in  her  weakness ;  her  ability  to  cope  with  the 
world  has  grown  out  of  her  unwillingness  to 
make  the  attempt ;  and  behold  her  now  a  mag 
nificent  example  of  the  good  effects  of  peace, 
justice,  and  hard  work.  God  grant  that  she 
may  never  find  occasion  to  walk  in  the  devious 
paths  of  intrigue,  or  to  raise  the  battle-cry  of 
invasion  ;  and  God  grant,  too — we  ask  it  with 
a  double  earnestness — that  she  may  not,  in  her 
prosperity,  forget  those  that  are  in  adversity ; 
that  she  may  never  take  part  with  the  oppres 
sor,  but  give  her  free  hand  of  sympathy  to  the 
oppressed,  whenever  and  wherever  they  shall 
undertake  the  struggle  for  their  rights  ! 
FEBRUARY,  1854. 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS," 

AN  individual,  masked  under  the  vulgar 
name  of  SAM,  furnishes  just  now  a  good  deal 
more  than  half  the  pabulum  wherewith  certain 
legislators  and  journalists  are  fed.  Whether  he 
is  a  mythical  or  real  personage — a  magus  or  a 
monkey — nobody  seems  to  know  ;  but  we  are 
inclined  to  regard  him  as  real,  because  of  his 
general  acceptance  among  Dalgetty  politicians, 
and  because  of  the  irresistible  merriment  his 
occasional  "  coming  down"  on  something  or 
other  affords  the  newspapers.  We  saw  a 
paunchy  old  gentleman  the  other  day,  with  a 
face  like  the  sun,  only  more  red  and  blue  and 
spotty,  and  a  dismally-wheezy  voice,  who  came 
near  being  carried  off  with  a  ponderous  apo 
plectic  chuckle,  which  seized  him  when  some 
body  casually  observed  that  "  Sam  was  pitching 
into  the  police,"  and  he  was  only  relieved  from 
the  fatal  consequences  by  a  series  of  desperate 


176  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

movements  which  resembled  those  of  a  seventy- 
four  getting  under-way  again  after  the  sudden 
stroke  of  a  typhoon.  Now,  if  Sam  was  not 
unquestionably  a  real  personage,  and  this  old 
gentleman  unquestionably  a  real  disciple  of  his, 
we  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  reality  of  the 
phenomena  thus  exhibited. 

But  whether  real  or  mythical,  it  has  been 
impossible  for  us  to  raise  our  admiration  of  Sam 
to  the  popular  pitch.  After  due  and  diligent 
inquiry,  we  have  arrived  at  only  a  moderate 
estimate  of  his  qualities.  In  fact,  considering 
the  mystery  in  which  he  shrouds  his  ways,  we 
are  disposed  to  believe  that  he  is  more  of  a 
Jerry  Sneak  than  a  hero.  The  assumption  of 
secresy  on  the  part  of  any  one,  naturally  starts 
our  suspicions.  We  cannot  see  \vhy  he  should 
resort  to  it,  if  he  harbors  only  just  or  generous 
designs.  We  associate  darkness  and  night  with 
things  that  are  foul,  and  we  admire  the  saying, 
that  twilight  even,  though  a  favorite  with 
lovers,  is  also  favorable  to  thieves.  Schemes 
which  shrink  from  the  day,  which  skulk  behind 
corners,  and  wrieule  themselves  into  obscure 

7  oO 

and  crooked  places,  are  not  the   schemes  we 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  177 

« 
love  at  a  venture.     And  all  the  veiled  prophets, 

we  apprehend,  are  very  much  like  that  one  we 
read  of  in  the  palace  of  Merou,  who  hid  his  face, 
as  he  pretended  to  his  admirers,  because  its 
brightness  would  strike  them  dead,  but  in 
reality  because  it  was  of  an  ugliness  so  mon 
strous  that  no  one  could  look  upon  it  and 
live. 

There  is  an  utterance,  however,  imputed  to 
this  impervious  and  oracular  Sam,  which  we 
cordially  accept.  He  is  said  to  have  said  that 
"  America  belongs  to  Americans" — -just  as  his 
immortal  namesake,  Sam  Patch,  said  that 
"  some  things  could  be  done  as  well  as  others" 
— and  we  thank  him  for  the  concession.  It  is 
good,  very  good,  very  excellent  good — as  the 
logical  Touchstone  would  have  exclaimed — pro 
vided  you  put  a  proper  meaning  to  it. 

What  is  America,  and  who  are  Americans  ? 
It  all  depends  upon  that,  and,  accordingly  as 
you  answer,  will  the  phrase  appear  very  wise 
or  very  foolish.  If  you  are  determined  to  con 
sider  America  as  nothing  more  than  the  two  or 
three  million  square  miles  of  dirt,  included  be 
tween  the  Granite  Hills  and  the  Pacific,  and 


178  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

Americans  as  those  men  exclusively  whose 
bodies  happened  to  be  fashioned  from  it,  we 
fear  that  you  have  riot  penetrated  to  the  real 
beauty  and  significance  of  the  terms.  The  soul 
of  a  muck-worm  may  very  naturally  be  con 
tented  with  identifying  itself  with  the  mould 
from  which  it  is  bred,  and  into  which  it  will 
soon  be  resolved;  but  the  soul  of  a  man,  unless 
we  are  hugely  misinformed,  claims  a  loftier 
origin,  and  looks  forward  to  a  nobler  destiny. 

America,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  embraces 
a  complex  idea.  It  means  not  simply  the  soil, 
with  its  coal,  cotton,  and  corn,  but  the  nation 
ality  by  which  that  soil  is  occupied,  and  the 
political  system  in  which  such  occupants  are 
organized.  The  soil  existed  long  before  Ves 
pucci  gave  it  a  name — as  long  back,  it  may  be, 
as  when  "  the  morning  stars  sang  together" — 
but  the  true  America,  a  mere  chicken  still,  dates 
from  the  last  few  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury.  It  picked  its  shell  for  the  first  time  amid 
the  cannon-volleys  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  gave  its 
first  peep  when  the  old  State  House  bell  at 
Philadelphia  rang  out  "liberty  to  all  the  land." 
Before  that  period,  the  straggling  and  depend- 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  179 

ent  colonies  which  were  here  were  the  mere 
spawn  of  the  older  nations — the  eggs  and  em 
bryos  of  America,  but  not  the  fully-fledged  bird. 
It  was  not  until  the  political  constitution  of 
'S9  had  been  accepted  by  the  people  that 
America  attained  a  complete  and  distinctive 
existence,  or  that  she  was  able — continuing  the 
figure  with  which  we  began — to  spread  her 
"  sheeny  vans,"  and  shout  a  cock-a-doodle  to 
the  sun. 

It  would  be  needless,  at  this  day,  to  state 
wrhat  are  the  distinguishing  principles  of  that 
political  existence.  They  have  been  pro 
nounced  ten  thousand  times,  and  resumed  as 
often  in  the  simple  formula  which  every  school 
boy  knows — the  government  of  the  whole  peo 
ple  by  themselves  and  for  themselves.  In  other 
words,  America  is  the  democratic  republic — not 
the  government  of  the  people  by  a  despot,  nor 
by  an  oligarchy,  nor  by  any  class,  such  as  the 
red-haired  part  of  the  inhabitants,  or  the  blue- 
eyed  part ;  nor  yet  a  government  for  any  other 
end  than  the  good  of  the  entire  nation — but  the 
democratic  republic,  pure  and  simple.  This  is 
the  political  organism  which  individualizes  us, 


180  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

or  separates  us  as  a  living  unity  from  all  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

All  this,  of  course,  would  be  too  elementary 
to  be  recounted  in  any  mature  discussion,  if  re 
cent  events  had  not  made  it  necessary  to  an 
adequate  answer  of  our  second  question — who, 
then,  are  Americans?  Who  constitute  the 
people  in  whose  hands  the  destinies  of  America 
are  to  be  deposited? 

The  fashionable  answer  in  these  times  is, 
"  the  natives  of  this  Continent,  to  be  sure  !" 
But  let  us  ask  again,  in  that  case,  whether  our 
old  friends  Uncas  and  Chingachgook,  and  Kag- 
ne-ga-bow-wow — whether  Walk-in-the-water, 
and  Talking-snake,  and  Big-yellow-thunder, 
are  to  be  considered  Americans  par-excellence  ? 
Alas,  no  !  for  they,  poor  fellows  !  are  all  trudg 
ing  towards  the  setting  sun,  and  soon  their  red 
and  dusky  figures  will  have  faded  in  the  darker 
shadows  of  the  night.  Is  it,  then,  the  second 
generation  of  natives — they  who  are  driving 
them  away — w7ho  compose  exclusively  the 
American  family  ?  You  say,  yes  ;  but  we  say, 
no  !  Because  if  America  be,  as  we  have  shown, 
more  than  the  soil  of  America,  we  do  not  see 


"AMERICA   FOR    THE   AMERICANS."  181 

how  a  mere  cloddy  derivation  from  it  entitles 
one  to  the  name  of  American.  Clearly,  that 
title  cannot  enure  to  us  from  the  mere  argilla 
ceous  or  silicious  compounds  of  our  bodies — 
clearly,  it  descends  from  no  vegetable  ancestry 
— clearly,  it  must  disdain  to  trace  itself  to  that 
simple  relationship  to  physical  nature  which 
we  chance  to  enjo}^  in  common  with  the  skunk, 
the  rattlesnake,  and  the  catamount.  All  these 
are  only  the  natural  productions  of  America — 
excellent,  no  doubt,  in  their  several  ways — but 
the  American  man  is  something  more  than  a 
natural  product — boasting  a  moral  or  spiritual 
genesis,  and  referring  his  birth-right  to  the 
immortal  thoughts,  which  are  the  soul  of  his 
institutions,  and  to  the  divine  affections,  which 
lift  his  politics  out  of  the  slime  of  state-craft, 
into  the  air  of  great  humanitary  purposes. 

The  real  American,  then,  is  he — no  matter 
whether  his  corporeal  chemistry  was  first  ig 
nited  in  Kamschatka  or  the  moon — who,  aban 
doning  every  other  country,  and  forswearing 
every  other  allegiance,  gives  his  mind  and  heart 
to  the  grand  constituent  ideas  of  the  republic — 
to  the  impulses  and  ends  in  which  and  by  which 


182  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

alone  it  subsists.  If  he  have  arrived  at  years 
of  discretion — if  he  produces  evidence  of  a  ca 
pacity  to  understand  the  relations  he  undertakes 
— if  he  has  resided  in  the  atmosphere  of  free 
dom  long  enough  to  catch  its  genuine  spirit — 
then  is  he  an  American,  in  the  true  and  best 
sense  of  the  term. 

Or,  if  not  an  American,  pray  what  is  he  ?  An 
Englishman,  a  German,  an  Irishman,  he  can  no 
longer  be  ;  he  has  cast  off  the  slough  of  his  old 
political  relations  forever ;  he  has  asserted  his 
sacred  right  of  expatriation  (which  the  United 
States  was  the  first  of  nations  to  sanction),  or 
been  expatriated  by  his  too  ardent  love  of  the 
cause  which  the  United  States  represents  ;  and 
he  can  never  return  to  the  ancient  fold.  It 
would  spurn  him  more  incontinently  than  pow 
der  spurns  the  fire.  He  must  become,  then, 
either  a  wanderer  and  a  nondescript  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  or  be  received  into  our  generous 
republican  arms.  It  is  our  habit  to  say  that  we 
know  of  no  race  nor  creed,  but  the  race  of  man 
and  the  creed  of  democracy,  and  if  he  appeals 
to  us  as  a  man  and  a  democrat,  there  is  no  al 
ternative  in  the  premises.  We  must  either 


"AMERICA   FOR   THE    AMERICANS."  183 

deny  his  claims  altogether — deny  that  he  is  a 
son  of  God  and  our  brother — or  else  we  must 
incorporate  him,  in  due  season,  into  the  house 
hold.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  offer  him  shel 
ter  from  the  rain — not  enough  that  we  mend 
his  looped  and  windowed  ragged  ness — not 
enough  that  we  replenish  his  wasted  midriff 
with  bacon  and  hominy,  and  open  to  his  palsied 
hands  an  opportunity  to  toil.  These  are  com 
mendable  charities,  but  they  are  such  charities 
as  any  one,  not  himself  a  brute,  would  willingly 
extend  to  a  horse  found  astray  on  the  common. 
Shall  we  do  no  more  for  our  fellows  ?  Have 
we  discharged  our  whole  duty,  as  men  to  men, 
when  we  have  avouched  the  sympathies  we 
would  freely  render  to  a  cat  ?  Do  we,  in  truth, 
recognize  their  claims  at  all,  when  we  refuse  to 
confess  that  higher  nature  in  them,  whereby 
alone  they  are  men,  and  not  stocks  or  animals  ? 
More  than  that :  do  we  not,  by  refusing  to  con 
fess  a  man's  manhood,  in  reality  heap  him  with 
the  heaviest  injury  it  is  in  our  power  to  inflict, 
and  wound  him  with  the  bitterest  insult  his 
spirit  can  receive  ? 

We   can  easily  conceive  the  justness  with 


184  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

which  an  alien,  escaping  to  our  shores  from  the 
oppressions  of  his  own  country,  or  voluntarily 
abandoning  it  for  the  sake  of  a  better  life, 
might  reply  to  those  who  receive  him  hospita 
bly,  but  deny  him  political  association  : — "  For 
your  good-will,  I  thank  you — for  the  privilege 
of  toiling  against  the  grim  inclemencies  of  my 
outcast  and  natural  condition,  which  yo.u  offer, 
I  thank  you — for  the  safeguard  of  your  noble- 
public  laws,  I  thank  you  ;  but  the  blessed  God 
having  made  me  a  man,  as  well  as  you — when 
you  refuse  me,  like  the  semi-barbarians  of 
Sparta,  all  civil  life — when,  with  Jewish  ex- 
clusiveness,  you  thrust  me  out  of  the  holy 
temple,  as  a  mere  proselyte  of  the  gate — your 
intended  kindnesses  scum  over  into  malignity, 
and  the  genial  wine-cup  you  proffer  brims 
with  wormwood  and  gall." 

We  are  well  aware  of  the  kind  of  outcry 
with  which  such  reasoning  is  usually  met.  We 
know  in  what  a  variety  of  tones — from  the 
vulgar  growl  of  the  pot-house  pugilist  to  the 
minatory  shriek  of  the  polemic,  frenzied  with 
fear  of  the  Scarlet  Lady — it  is  proclaimed  that 
all  foreign  infusions  into  our  life  are  venomous, 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  185 

and  ought  to  be  vehemently  resisted.  Nor  do 
we  mean  to  deny  the  right  of  every  communi 
ty  to  protect  itself  from  hurt,  even  to  the  forci 
ble  extrusion,  if  necessary,  of  the  ingredients 
which  threaten  its  damage.  But  that  necessi 
ty  must  be  most  distinctly  proved.  The  case 
must  be  one  so  clear  as  to  leave  no  doubt  of  it, 
as  an  absolute  case  of  self-defense.  Now, 
there  is  no  such  overruling  necessity  with  us, 
as  to  compel  either  the  exclusion,  or  the  ex 
trusion,  of  our  alien  residents.  They  are  not 
such  a  violent  interpolation,  as  when  grains  of 
sand,  to  use  Coleridge's  figure,  have  got  be 
tween  the  shell  and  the  flesh  of  the  snail — 
that  they  will  kill  us  if  we  do  not  put  them 
out  and  keep  them  out.  A  prodigious  hue  and 
cry  against  them  wakes  the  echoes  of  the 
vicinage  just  now,  such  as  is  raised  when  a 
pack  of  hungry  foxes  stray  into  the  honest 
hen-roost,  but  the  clamor  is  quite  dispropor 
tionate  to  the  occasion.  The  foxes  are  by  no 
means  so  numerous  or  predacious  as  they  are 
imagined  to  be,  and  there  is  no  such  danger  of 
them  for  the  future  that  we  need  to  be  trans 
fixed  with  fright,  or  scamper  away  in  a  stam- 


186  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

pede  of  panic  terror.  The  evils  which  our 
past  experience  of  Naturalization  has  made 
known  to  us — for  there  are  some — are  not  un 
manageable  evils,  requiring  a  sudden  and  spas 
modic  remedy,  and  menacing  a  disastrous  over 
throw  unless  they  are  instantly  tackled.  The 
most  of  them  are  like  the  other  evils  of  our 
social  condition — mere  incidents  of  an  infantile 
or  transitional  state — of  a  life  not  yet  arrived 
at  full  maturity — and  will  be  worked  off  in  the 
regular  course  of  things.  At  any  rate,  they 
solicit  no  headstrong,  desperate  assault ;  only 
a  consciousness  of  what  and  where  our  real 
strength  is,  and  patient  self-control. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  fixed  conviction 
of  ours,  in  respect  to  this  whole  subject  of 
aliens — that  there  is  much  less  danger  in  ac 
cepting  them  as  citizens,  under  almost  any  cir 
cumstances,  than  there  would  be  in  attempting 
to  keep  them  out.  In  the  latter  case,  by  separat 
ing  them  from  the  common  life  of  the  commu 
nity — making  them  amenable  to  laws  for  which 
they  are  yet  not  responsible — taxing  them  for 
the  support  of  a  government  in  which  they  are 
not  represented — calling  upon  them  for  pur- 


"  AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."       187 

poses  of  defense  when  they  have  no  real  coun 
try  to  defend — we  should  in  effect  erect  them 
into  a  distinct  and  subordinate  class,  on  which 
we  had  fastened  a  very  positive  stigma,  or 
degradation.  How  lamentable  and  inevitable 
the  consequences  of  such  a  social  contrast ! 

The  reader,  doubtless,  has  often  seen  a 
wretched  oak  by  the  way-side,  whose  trunk  is 
all  gnarled  and  twisted  into  knots  ;  or  he  may 
have  passed  through  the  wards  of  a  hospital, 
where  beautiful  human  bodies  are  eaten  with 
ulcers  and  sores  ;  or  he  may  have  read  of 
the  Pariahs  of  India,  those  vile  and  verminous 
outcasts,  who  live  in  hovels  away  from  the 
cities,  and  prey  on  property  like  rats  and  wea 
sels  ;  or,  again,  chance  may  have  led  him 
through  the  Jews'  quarters,  the  horrid  ghettos 
of  the  old  continental  towns,  where  squalor 
accompanies  ineffable  crime  ;  or,  finally,  his 
inquiries  may  have  made  him  familiar  with  the 
free  blacks  of  his  own  country,  with  their  hope 
less  degradations  and  miseries  !  Well,  if  these 
experiences  have  been  his,  he  has  discerned  in 
them  the  exponents — in  some,  the  symbols,  and 
in  others,  the  actual  effects — of  the  terrible 


188  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

spirit  of  exclusion,  when  it  is  worked  out  in 
society.  For,  it  is  a  universal  truth,  that 
whatever  thing  enjoys  but  a  partial  participa 
tion  of  the  life  to  which  it  generically  belongs, 
gets,  to  the  extent  of  the  deprivation,  diseased. 
It  is  also  as  universal  a  truth,  that  the  spread 
of  that  disease  will,  sooner  or  later,  affect  the 
more  living  members.  Make  any  class  of  men, 
for  instance,  an  exception  in  society  ;  set  them 
apart  in  a  way  which  shall  exclude  them  from 
the  more  vital  circulations  of  that  society  ; 
place  them  in  relations  which  shall  breed  in 
them  a  sense  of  alienation  and  of  degradation 
at  the  same  time — and  they  must  become 
either  blotches  or  parasites,  which  corrupt  it ; 
or  else  a  band  of  conspirators,  more  or  less  ac 
tive,  making  war  upon  its  integrity.  Let  us 
suppose  that  some  ruler,  a  Louis  Napoleon,  or 
Dr.  Francia,  should  decree  that  all  the  inhabit 
ants  of  a  certain  country,  of  oblique  or  defect 
ive  vision,  should  be  rigidly  confined  to  one 
of  the  lower  mechanical  occupations;  would 
not  all  the  squint-eyed  and  short-sighted  peo 
ple  be  immediately  degraded  in  the  estimation 
of  the  rest  of  the  community  ?  Would  not 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  189 

the  feeling  of  that  debasement  act  as  a  perpet 
ual  irritant  to  their  malice — lead  them  to  hate 
the  rest,  and  to  prey  upon  them — and  so  feed 
an  incessant  feud — open  or  sinister,  as  the  in 
jured  party  might  be  strong  or  weak — between 
the  strabismic  families  and  those  of  a  more 
legitimate  ocularity  ?  In  the  same  way,  but 
with  even  more  certainty  and  virulence  of  ef 
fect,  any  legal  distinctions  among  a  people, 
founded  upon  differences  of  birth  or  race,  must 
generate  unpleasant  and  pernicious  relations, 
which,  in  the  end,  could  only  be  maintained  by 
force.  Say  to  the  quarter  million  of  foreigners 
who  annually  arrive  on  our  shores,  that  like 
the  metoikoi  and  perioikoi  of  the  Greeks,  they 
may  subsist  here,  but  nothing  more  ;  that  the 
privileges  of  the  inside  of  the  city,  suffrage, 
office,  equality,  ambition,  are  closed  to  them  ; 
that  they  may  sport  for  our  amusement  in  the 
arenas,  look  on  at  our  courts,  do  our  severer  la 
bors  for  us,  and  reverently  admire  our  great 
ness  ;  but  that  they  shall  have  no  part  nor  lot 
in  that  political  life  which  is  the  central  and 
distinguishing  life  of  the  nation  ;  and,  so  far 
forth,  you  convert  them,  infallibly,  into  ene- 


190  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

mies — into  the  worst  kind  of  enemies,  too — 
because  internal  enemies,  who  have  already  ef 
fected  a  lodgment  in  the  midst  of  your  citadel. 
Coming  as  an  invading  army — these  thousands 
— with  avowed  unfriendly  purposes  —  they 
might  easily  be  driven  back  by  our  swords  : 
but  coming  here  to  settle  and  be  transmuted 
into  a  caste — into  political  lepers  and  vaga 
bonds — they  would  degenerate  into  a  moral 
plague,  which  no  human  weapon  could  turn 
away.  Proscribed  from  the  most  important 
functions  of  the  society  in  which  they  lived, 
they  would  cherish  an  interest  separate  from 
the  general  interest,  and,  as  they  grew  stronger, 
form  themselves  into  an  organized  and  irritable 
clanship.  Their  just  resentments,  or  their  in 
creasing  arrogance,  would  sooner  or  later  pro 
voke  some  rival  faction  into  conflict ;  and  then 
the  deep-seated,  fatal  animosities  of  race  and 
religion,  exasperated  by  the  remembrance  of 
injuries  given  and  taken,  would  rage  over  so 
ciety  like  the  winds  over  the  sea. 

History  is  full  of  warnings  to  us  on  this 
head.  No  causes  were  more  potent,  in  sunder 
ing  the  social  ties  of  the  ancient  nations,  than 


191 

the  fierce  civil  wars  which  grew  out  of  the 
narrow  policy  of  restricting  citizenship  to  the 
indigenous  races.  No  blight  has  fallen  with 
more  fearful  severity  on  Europe  than  the  blight 
of  class  domination,  which,  for  centuries,  has 
wasted  the  energies  and  the  virtues,  the  happi 
ness  and  the  hopes,  of  the  masses.  Nor  is 
there  any  danger  that  threatens  our  own  coun 
try  now — scarcely  excepting  slavery — more 
subtile  or  formidable  than  the  danger  which 
lurks  in  those  ill-suppressed  hatreds  of  race  and 
religion,  which  some  persons  seem  eager  to 
foment  into  open  quarrel.  Already  the  future 
is  walking  in  to-day.  The  recent  disgraceful 
exhibitions  in  this  city — the  armed  and  hostile 
bands  which  are  known  to  be  organized — the 
bitter  taunts  and  encounters  of  their  leaders — 
the  low  criminations  of  the  Senate-house — the 
pugilistic  melee,  ending  in  death — the  instant 
and  universal  excitement — the  elevation  of  a 
bully  of  the  bar-room  into  the  hero  of  a  cause 
— the  imposing  funeral  honors,  rivaling  in  pa 
geantry  and  depth  of  emotion  the  most  solemn 
obsequies  that  a  nation  could  decree  its  noblest 
benefactor — all  these  are  marks  of  a  soreness 


192  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

which  needs  only  to  be  irritated  to  suppurate 
in  social  war. 

Our  statesmen  at  Washington  are  justly  sens 
ible  of  the  dangers  of  sectional  divisions  ;  but 
no  sectional  divisions  which  it  is  possible  to 
arouse  are  half  so  much  to  be  dreaded  as  an  in 
flamed  and  protracted  contest  between  natives 
and  aliens,  or  Catholics  and  Protestants.  The 
divisions  which  spring  from  territorial  interests 
appeal  to  few  of  the  deeper  passions  of  the 
soul ;  but  the  divisions  of  race  and  religion 
touch  a  chord  in  the  human  heart  which  vi 
brates  to  the  intensest  malignity  of  hell.  Ac 
cordingly,  the  pen  of  the  historian  registers 
many  brutal  antagonisms,  many  lasting  and 
terrible  wars  ;  but  the  most  brutal  of  all  those 
antagonisms,  the  most  lasting  and  terrible  of 
all  those  wars,  are  the  antagonisms  of  race,  and 
the  wars  of  religion. 

It  will  be  replied  to  what  we  have  hitherto 
urged,  that  our  argument  proceeds  upon  the 
imputation,  that  aliens  are  to  be  totally  ex 
cluded  from  political  life ;  whereas,  nobody 
proposes  such  a  thing,  but  only  a  longer  pre 
paratory  residence. 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  193 

We  rejoin,  that  the  persons  and  parties  who 
are  now  agitating  the  general  question,  because 
they  propose  the  exclusion  of  adopted  citizens 
from  office,  do,  in  effect,  propose  a  total  politi 
cal  disqualification  of  foreigners.  All  their  in 
vectives,  all  their  speeches,  all  their  secret 
assemblages,  have  this  end  and  no  other.  They 
agree  to  ostracize  politically  every  man  who  is 
not  born  on  our  soil ;  they  conspire  not  to 
nominate,  to  any  preferment,  not  to  vote  for, 
any  candidate  who  is  born  abroad  ;  and  these 
agreements  and  conspiracies  are  a  present  dis- 
franchisement,  so  far  as  they  are  effective,  of 
every  adopted  citizen,  and  a  future  anathema 
of  every  alien.  Whether  the  aim  be  accom 
plished  by  public  opinion,  by  secret  conclave, 
or  by  law,  the  consequences  are  the  same  ;  and 
the  general  objections  we  have  alleged,  to  the 
division  of  society  into  castes,  apply  with  equal 
force. 

We  rejoin  again — in  respect  to  the  distinc 
tion  made  between  a  total  exclusion  of  foreign 
ers,  and  a  change  in  the  naturalization  laws — 
that  it  is  a  distinction  which  really  amounts  to 
nothing.  For,  firstly,  if  the  probation  be  ex- 

9 


194  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

tended  to  a  long  period,  say  twenty-one  years 
as  some  recommend,  it  would  be  equivalent  to 
a  total  exclusion;  and,  secondly,  if  a  shorter 
period,  say  ten  years,  be  adopted,  the  change 
would  be  unimportant,  because  no  valid  objec 
tion  against  the  present  term  of  five  years 
would  thereby  be  obviated.  Let  us  see,  for  a 
moment. 

Firstly,  as  to  a  term  of  twenty-one  years : 
we  say  that,  inasmuch  as  the  majority  of  for 
eigners  who  arrive  on  our  shores  are  twenty- 
five  years  of  age  and  over,  when  they  arrive,  if 
we  impose  a  quarantine  of  twenty-one  years 
more,  they  will  not  be  admitted  as  citizens  un 
til  they  shall  have  reached  an  age  when  the 
tardy  boon  will  be  of  little  value  to  them,  and 
when  their  faculties  and  their  interests  in  hu 
man  affairs  will  have  begun  to  decline.  Whether 
they  will  care  to  solicit  their  right  at  that  pe 
riod  is  doubtful,  and,  if  they  do,  they  can  re 
gard  it  as  scarcely  more  than  a  mockery.  How 
many  of  them  will  live  to  be  over  forty-five 
or  fifty  years  of  age,  if  we  leave  them  in  the 
interval  to  loiter  in  the  grog-shops,  and  amid 
scenes  of  vice,  as  they  are  more  likely  to  do  if 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  195 

not  absorbed  into  the  mass  of  citizens  ?  How 
many,  having  passed  twenty-one  years  of  po 
litical  ban,  and  even  of  ignominy — for  it  would 
come  to  that — would  be  thereby  better  pre 
pared  for  adoption?  The  younger  ranks  of  the 
emigrants  might  possibly  benefit  by  the  hope 
of  one  day  becoming  citizens,  and  look  forward 
to  it  with  some  degree  of  interest ;  but  to  all 
the  restit  would  be  a  fata  morgana,  and  the 
protracted  test  virtually  an  interdiction. 

Secondly,  as  to  any  shorter  novitiate,  say  ten 
or  twelve  years,  it  would  not  be  more  effective, 
in  the  way  of  qualifying  the  pupil,  than  the 
existing  term.  As  the  laws  now  stand,  an  alien, 
giving  three  years'  notice  of  intention,  must 
have  been  five  years  consecutively  a  resident 
of  the  United  States,  and  one  year  a  resident 
of  the  State  and  County  in  which  he  applies — 
must  be  of  good  moral  character — must  be  at 
tached  to  our  constitution  and  laws — must  ab 
jure  all  foreign  powers,  particularly  that  he 
was  subject  to — and  must  swear  faithful  alle 
giance  to  the  government  of  his  adoptive  coun 
try — before  he  can  be  admitted  a  member  of 
the  State.  What  more  could  be  exacted  of 


196  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

him,  at  the  end  of  ten  years,  or  twenty?  If 
unfit  for  acceptance — according  to  these  re 
quirements — at  the  end  of  five  years,  would 
he  be  more  likely  to  be  fit  at  the  end  of  ten  ? 
In  short,  is  there  a  single  disqualification, 
which  zealous  nativists  are  apt  to  allege  against 
foreigners — such  as  their  ignorance,  their  clan- 
nishness,  their  attachment  to  foreign  govern 
ments,  and  their  subjection  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church — which  would  be  probably 
alleviated  by  means  of  a  more  protracted  em 
bargo  ?  None ;  on  the  contrary,  as  we  have 
intimated  in  another  place,  all  their  worse 
qualities  would  be  aggravated  by  the  exclusive 
association  among  themselves  for  so  many  years 
longer,  in  which  they  would  be  kept — while 
they  would  lose,  as  we  shall  show  more  fully 
hereafter,  the  best  means  of  fitting  themselves 
for  good  citizenship,  in  losing  the  educational 
influences  of  our  actual  political  life. 

It  is  true,  in  respect  to  the  present  laws  of 
naturalization,  that  our  courts  have  shown  a 
baneful  laxity  in  enforcing  their  conditions,  and 
that  our  leading  parties,  corrupt  everywhere, 
are  nowhere  more  corrupt  than  in  their  modes 


"AMERICA   FOR   THE    AMERICANS."  197 

of  naturalizing  foreigners  ;  but  there  is  no  rea 
son  to  expect  that  either  courts  or  parties  will 
grow  more  severe  under  more  stringent  laws. 
They  will  have  the  same  motives,  and  be  just 
as  eager,  to  license  fraudulent  voters  then  as 
they  are  now ;  and  the  few  days  before  a  great 
Presidential  election  will  exhibit  the  same  dis 
graceful  scenes  of  venality  and  falsehood.  No 
simple  change  in  the  time  of  the  law,  at  any 
rate,  can  work  any  improvement.  Nor  will  such 
a  change  render  it  any  more  difficult  for  the 
dishonest  alien  to  procure  the  franchise.  He 
can  just  as  easily  swear  to  a  long  residence  as 
a  short  one  ;  while  it  will  happen,  that  the 
rarer  we  make  the  privilege,  the  more  we  in 
crease  the  difficulties  of  access  to  it,  the  longer 
we  postpone  the  minority,  the  greater  will  be 
his  inducements  to  evade  the  law.  In  propor 
tion  as  a  prize  becomes  more  valuable,  the 
temptations  to  a  surreptitious  seizure  of  it  in 
crease  ;  but  where  an  end  is  easily  achieved, 
the  trouble  of  waiting  till  it  be  obtained  in  the 
regular  way  is  preferred  to  the  hazards  of  a 
clandestine  or  criminal  attempt  to  carry  it 
off. 


198  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

Besides,  it  is  a  puerile  piece  of  injustice  to 
wards  the  alien,  to  inflict  him  with  a  disability 
because  of  our  own  laches.  We  have  failed  to 
administer  our  laws  as  they  should  be,  and,  ex 
periencing  some  injury  in  consequence,  we  turn 
round  to  abuse  the  foreigner,  like  a  foolish  and 
petulant  boy  who  kicks  the  stone  over  which 
he  stumbled.  The  more  magnanimous  as  well 
as  sensible  course  would  be,  to  amend  our  own 
faults.  Let  us  make  the  five  years  of  proba 
tion  what  the  courts  may  easily  make  them,  by 
rigidly  exacting  the  criterions  of  the  law — an 
interval  of  real  preparation  for  citizenship — 
and  the  present  term  will  be  found  long  enough. 
But  whether  long  enough  or  not,  the  question 
of  time,  that  is,  whether  it  shall  be  five  years 
or  ten,  is  a  simple  question  of  internal  police, 
not  of  lasting  principles,  to  be  determined  by 
the  facts  of  experience,  and  by  no  means  justi 
fying  the  virulent  and  wholesale  denunciations 
of  foreigners  it  is  the  fashion  with  some  to  ful 
minate. 

In  fact,  the  entire  logic  of  the  nativists  is 
vitiated  by  its  indiscriminating  character.  Be 
cause  a  large  number  of  the  Irish,  and  a  con- 


199 

siderable  number  of  the  Germans,  have  been 
reduced,  by  the  long  years  of  abuse  which  they 
have  suffered  at  home,  to  an  inferior  manhood, 
it  is  argued,  that  all  the  rest  of  the  Germans 
and  the  Irish,  and  all  the  Swiss,  English,  French, 
Scotch,  Swedes,  and  Italians,  must  be  made  to 
suffer  for  it ;  but  what  a  grievous  error  !  The 
poor  exiles  and  refugees,  many  of  them,  are,  no 
doubt,  sufficiently  debased — some,  even,  exces 
sively  insolent,  too — but  among  them  are 
others  who  are  not  so — among  them,  are  thou 
sands  upon  thousands  of  men,  of  hardy  virtues 
and  clear  intelligence,  whose  industry  contri 
butes  vastly  to  the  wealth,  as  their  integrity 
does  to  the  good  order,  of  our  society.  Labor 
ing  like  slaves  for  us,  they  have  built  our  cities 
and  railroads  ;  piercing  the  western  wilds,  they 
have  caused  them  to  blossom  into  gardens; 
taking  part  in  our  commerce  and  manufactures, 
they  have  helped  to  carry  the  triumphs  of  our 
arts  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  globe.  It 
was  from  their  ranks  that  our  statesmanship  re 
cruited  Gallatin,  Morris,  and  Hamilton — that 
the  Law  acquired  Rutledge,  Wilson,  and  Em 
met — that  the  Army  won  its  Gates,  its  Mer- 


200  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

eer,  and  its  Montgomery — the  Navy  its  Jones, 
Blakeley,  and  Barry — the  Arts  their  Sully,  and 
Cole — Science,  its  Agassiz,  and  Guyot — Phi 
lanthropy,  its  Eliot,  and  Benezet,  and  Religion 
its  Witherspoon,  its  White,  its  Whitfield,  and 
its  Cheverus. 

The  adopted  citizen,  no  doubt,  preserves  a 
keen  remembrance  of  his  native  land ;  but 
"  lives  there  on  earth  a  soul  so  dead"  as  not  to 
sympathize  in  that  feeling?  Let  us  ask  you, 
oh  patriotic  Weissnicht,  all  fresh  as  you  are 
from  the  vociferations  of  the  lodge,  whether 
you  do  at  heart  think  the  less  of  a  man  because 
he  cannot  wholly  forget  the  play-place  of  his 
infancy — the  friends  and  companions  of  his  boy 
hood — the  old  cabin  in  which  he  was  reared — - 
and  the  grave  in  which  the  bones  of  his  honor 
ed  mother  repose  ?  Have  you  never  seen  two 
long-separated  friends,  from  the  Old  World,  meet 
again  in  the  New,  and  clasp  each  other  in  a 
warm  embrace,  while  their  conversation  blos 
somed  up,  from  a  vein  of  commom  memory,  in 

*'  Sweet  household  talk,  and  phrases  of  the  hearth  ;'' 

and  did   you  not  love  them  the  more,  in  that 


"AMERICA   FOR   THE   AMERICANS."  201 

their  eyes  grew  liquid  with  the  dear  old  themes  ? 
Or  is  there,  in  the  whole  circle  of  your  large 
and  respectable  private  acquaintance,  a  single 
Scotchman  to  whom  you  refuse  your  hand  be 
cause  his  affections  melt  under  the  "  Auld  lang 
syne"  of  Burns,  or  because  his  sides  shake  like 
a  falling  house  when  "Halloween"  or  "Tarn 
O'Shanter"  is  read  ?  Can  you  blame  even  the 
poor  Frenchman  if  his  eyes  light  up  into  a  kind  of 
deathless  glow,  when  the  "  Marseillaise,"  twist 
ed  from  some  wandering  hurdy-gurdy,  has  yet 
power  to  recall  the  glorious  days  in  which  his 
fathers  and  brothers  danced  for  liberty's  sake 
and  with  gay  audacity,  towards  the  guillotine  ? 
We  venture  to  say  for  you,  no  !  and  we  believe, 
if  the  truth  were  told,  that  often,  on  the  lonely 
western  plains,  you  have  dreamed  over  again 
with  the  German  his  sweet  dream  of  the  resur 
rection  and  unity  of  the  Fatherland.  We  have 
ourselves  seen  you  at  the  St.  George  dinners, 
oh  Weissnicht,  swell  with  a  very  evident  pride, 
when  some  flagrant  Englishman,  recounting, 
not  the  battles  which  his  ancestors  for  ten  cen 
turies  had  won  on  every  field  of  Europe,  but 

the  better  trophies  gained  by  Shakespeare,  Mil- 
9* 


202  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ton,  Bacon,  or  Cromwell,  told  you  that  a  little 
of  that  same  blood  coursed  in  your  veins  !  The 
tell-tale  blood,  as  it  tingled  through  your  body 
and  suffused  your  cheeks,  confessed  the  fact,  if 
your  words  did  not !  How,  then,  can  you,  who 
gaze  at  Bunker  Hill  with  tears  in  your  eyes, 
arid  fling  up  your  hat  of  a  Fourth  of  July  with 
a  jerk  that  almost  dislocates  the  shoulder, retire 
to  your  secret  conclave,  and  chalk  it  up  behind 
the  door,  against  the  foreigner,  that  he  has  a 
lingering  love  for  his  native  country  ?  Why,  he 
ought  to  be  despised  if  he  had  not,  if  he  could 
forget  his  heritages  of  old  renown ;  for  it  is  this 
traditional  tenderness,  these  genial  memories  of 
the  immortal  words,  and  deeds,  and  places,  that 
constitute  his  patronymic  glories,  which  show 
that  he  has  a  human  heart  still  under  his  jacket, 
and  is  all  the  more  likely,  on  account  of  it,  to 
become  a  worthy  American.  Do  not  delude 
yourself,  however,  into  the  shallow  belief  that 
the  aliens,  because  of  these  sentimental  attach 
ments,  will  be  led  into  the  love  of  their  native 
governments,  which,  having  plundered  them 
and  their  class,  for  years,  at  last  expelled 
them  to  our  shores.  Ah !  no — poor  devils — 


"AMERICA    FOR   THE    AMERICANS."  203 

they  have  not  been  so  chucked  under  the  chin, 
and  fondled,  and  caressed,  and  talked  pretty 
to,  and  fed  with  sweet-cakes,  and  humored  in 
all  sorts  of  self-indulgences,  by  the  old  despot 
isms  as  to  have  fallen  in  love  with  them,  forever 
and  ever.  On  the  contrary,  if  the  reports  are 
true,  quite  other  endearments  were  showered 
upon  them — such  as  cuffs  and  kicks — with  a 
distinct  intimation,  besides,  as  Mr.  Richard 
Swiveller  said  to  Mr.  Quilp,  after  pounding  him 
thoroughly,  that  "  there  were  plenty  more  in  the 
same  shop — a  large  and  extensive  assortment 
always  on  hand — and  every  order  executed  with 
promptitude  and  dispatch."  Now,  these  are 
experiences  that  are  apt  to  make  republicans 
of  men,  and  to  fill  them  with  other  feelings 
than  those  of  overweening  attachment  to  their 
oppressors ! 

But  this  is  a  slight  digression,  and  we  return 
to  the  main  current  of  our  argument,  to  say — 
what  we  esteem  quite  fatal  to  all  schemes  for 
excommunicating  foreigners,  or  even  greatly 
extending  their  minority — that  the  best  way, 
on  the  whole,  for  making  them  good  citizens, 
is  to  make  them  citizens.  The  evils  of  making 


204  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

them  a  class  by  themselves,  we  have  already  al 
luded  to,  and  we  now  speak,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  the  benefits  which  must  accrue  to  them  and 
to  us  from  their  absorption  into  the  general  life 
of  the  community.  It  is  universally  conceded 
by  the  liberal  writers  on  government  and  socie 
ty,  that  the  signal  and  beneficent  advantage  of 
republican  institutions  (by  which  we  mean  an 
organized  series  of  local  self-governments)  is, 
that  their  practical  influences  are  so  strongly 
educational.  They  train  their  subjects  constantly 
into  an  increasing  capacity  for  their  enjoyment. 
In  the  old  despotic  nations — as  we  are  all  aware 
— where  the  State  is  one  thing  and  the  people 
another — the  State  is,  in  reality,  a  mere  ma 
chine  of  police,  even  in  its  educational  and  re 
ligious  provisions — maintaining  a  rigid  order, 
but  acting  only  externally  on  the  people,  whom 
it  treats  either  as  slaves  or  children.  It 
does  not  directly  develop  the  sense  of  responsi 
bility  in  them,  nor  accustom  them  to  self-con 
trol  and  the  exercise  of  their  faculties.  But  in 
free  commonwealths — which  abhor  this  exces 
sive  centralizing  tendency,  and  which  distrib 
ute  power  through  subordinate  municipalities, 


"AMERICA  FOR  THE  AMERICANS."  205 

leaving  the  individual  as  much  discretion  as 
possible — the  people  are  the  state,  and  grow  in 
to  each  other  as  a  kind  of  living  unity.  Thrown 
upon  their  own  resources,  they  acquire  quick 
ness,  skill,  energy,  and  self-poise  ;  yet,  made  re 
sponsible  for  the  general  interests,  they  learn 
to  deliberate,  to  exercise  judgment,  to  weigh 
the  bearings  of  public  questions,  and  to  act  in 
reference  to  the  public  welfare.  At  the  same 
time,  the  lists  of  preferment  being  open  to  them, 
they  cultivate  the  virtues  and  talents  which 
will  secure  the  confidence  of  their  neighbors. 
Every  motive  of  ambition  and  honor  is  address 
ed  to  them,  to  improve  their  condition,  and  to 
perfect  their  endowments ;  while  a  conscious 
ness  of  their  connection  with  the  state,  imparts 
a  sense  of  personal  worth  and  dignity.  In  prac 
tice,  of  course,  some  show  themselves  insensi 
ble  to  these  considerations,  but  a  majority  do 
not.  The  consequence  is,  that  the  commonalty 
of  the  republic  are  vastly  superior  to  the  same 
classes  abroad.  Compare  the  farmers  of  our 
prairies  to  the  boors  of  the  Russian  steppes,  or 
to  the  peasants  of  the  French  valleys !  Or  com 
pare  the  great  body  of  the  working  men  in 


206  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

England  with  those  of  the  United  States  !  Now, 
the  American  is  not  of  a  better  nature  than  the 
European — for  he  is  often  of  the  same  stock — 
nor  is  there  any  charm  in  our  soil  and  climate 
unknown  to  the  soil  and  climate  of  the  other 
hemisphere ;  but  there  is  a  difference  in  insti 
tutions.  Institutions,  with  us,  are  made  for 
men,  and  not  men  for  the  institutions.  It  is 
the  jury,  the  ballot-box,  the  free  public  assem 
blage,  the  local  committee,  the  legislative  as 
sembly,  the  place  of  trust,  and,  as  a  result  of 
these,  the  school  and  the  newspaper,  which 
give  such  a  spur  to  our  activities,  and  endow 
us  with  such  political  competence.  The  actual 
responsibilities  of  civil  life  are  our  support 
and  nutriment,  and  the  wings  wherewith  we 

%• 

If,  consequently,  you  desire  the  foreigner  to 
grow  into  a  good  citizen,  you  must  subject  him 
to  the  influences  by  which  good  citizens  are 
made.  Train  him  as  you  are  yourselves  trained, 
under  the  effective  tutelage  of  the  regular  rou 
tine  and  responsibility  of  politics.  He  will 
never  learn  to  swim  by  being  kept  out  of  the 
water,  any  more  than  a  slave  can  become  a 


"  AMERICA    FOR   THE    AMERICANS."  207 

freeman  in  slavery.  He  gets  used  to  independ 
ence  by  the  practice  of  it,  as  the  child  gets 
used  to  walking  by  walking.  It  is  exercise 
alone  which  brings  out  and  improves  all  sorts 
of  fitnesses — social  as  well  as  physical — and  the 
living  of  any  life  alone  teaches  us  how  it  is  to  be 
best  lived.  Nor  will  any  one  work  for  an  end  in 
which  he  and  his  have  no  part.  They  only  act 
for  the  community  who  are  of  the  community. 
Outsiders  are  always  riders.  They  stand  or  sit 
aloof.  They  have  no  special  call  to  promote  the 
internal  thrift  and  order,  which  may  get  on  as  it 
can,  for  all  them.  But  incorporate  them  into  it, 
and  it  is  as  dear  as  the  apple  of  their  eye.  Choose 
a  person  selectman  of  the  village,  and  he  con 
ceives  a  paternal  regard  for  it  instantly,  and 
makes  himself  wondrously  familiar  with  its  af 
fairs,  and  their  practical  management.  Show  a 
rude  fellow  the  possibility  of  a  place  in  the  po 
lice,  and  he  begins  to  think  how  important  the 
execution  of  the  law  is.  Hang  the  awful  dig 
nity  of  a  seat  on  the  justice's  bench  before  the 
ambition  of  the  country  squire,  and  straight 
way  he  looks  as  wise  as  Lord  Eldon,  and  will 
strive  to  become  so,  rather  than  otherwise. 


208  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

How  the  prospect,  too,  of  a  winter  at  Albany 
or  Washington  stimulates  all  the  local  nota 
bles  into  a  capacity  for  it,  as  well  as  a  desire. 
Thus,  our  whole  political  experience  is  an  in 
cessant  instruction,  and  should  no  more  be  with 
drawn  from  any  class  in  society  than  the  at 
mosphere.  It  is  prettily  told,  in  that  book  of 
Eastern  fables  which  delights  our  youth  and 
enriches  our  manhood,  that  the  father  of  Alad 
din  Abushamat,  lest  he  should  be  hurt  by  the 
world,  kept  him  under  a  trap-door,  where  he 
was  visited  only  by  two  faithful  slaves.  But, 
pining  and  weary,  the  young  man  one  day  stole 
from  his  retreat,  and  running  to  his  father,  who 
was  syndic  of  the  merchants,  said :  "Oh,  my 
father,  how  shall  I  be  able  to  manage  the  great 
wealth  thou  hast  gained  for  me,  if  thou  keepest 
me  here  in  prison,  and  takest  me  not  to  the 
markets,  where  I  may  open  a  shop,  and  sit 
among  the  merchandise,  buying  and  selling,  and 
taking  and  giving  ?"  The  father  thought  for 
awhile,  and  said:  "  True,  my  son  ;  the  will  of 
God  be  done  ;  I  will  take  thee  to  the  market- 
street  and  the  shops,"  and  we  are  told  that  Alad 
din  Abushamat  became,  though  not  without 


"AMERICA   FOR   THE    AMERICANS."  20b 

some  slips,  a  very  rich  man,  as  well  as  the  right 
hand  of  the  great  Caliph,  Haroun  Alraschid, 
Prince  of  the  Faithful,  whose  name  be  ever  ex 
alted  ! 

MAY,  1855. 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR   THE   POPE? 
ONE  cause  of  the  current  movement  against 

O 

foreigners  is,  the  hereditary  aversion  of  Protest 
ants  to  the  Roman  Church.  It  is  alleged,  that 
the  doctrines  of  that  Church  assert  the  right  of 
the  Pope  to  interfere  in  the  temporal  affairs  of 
kingdoms  and  states,  while  they  demand  for 
him  the  exclusive  allegiance  of  its  members ; 
and  the  inference  is,  that  no  one  professing  those 
doctrines  can  yield  an  honest  allegiance  to  any 
other  power. 

We  propose  to  inquire  how  far  these  posi 
tions  are  true  ;  and,  if  true,  to  what  extent 
and  in  what  way  we  ought  to  resist  their  dan 
gers. 

Before  doing  so,  it  may  be  proper  to  premise, 
that  we  have  not  been  educated  to  any  over 
weening  estimate  of  the  claims  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  On  the  contrary,  all  our  studies  and 
observations,  as  well  as  our  general  habits  of 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         211 

thought,  have  led  us  into  convictions  utterly 
hostile  to  its  theories  of  government  and  its 
creeds.  It  seems  to  us  a^  singular  mixture  of 
fanaticism,  tyranny,  cunning,  and  religion.  Nor 
are  we  insensible  of  its  many  means  of  influ 
ence,  and  of  the  vast  prestige  with  which  it 
addresses  itself  both  to  the  imagination  and  rea 
son  of  men.  Its  venerable  age,  connecting  it 
with  the  most  ancient  and  splendid  civilizations, 
Oriental,  Grecian,  Roman,  and  feudal,  and  sur 
viving  them  all — its  marvelous  organization, 
combining  the  solidest  strength  with  the  most 
flexile  activity,  conciliating  the  wildest  fanatical 
zeal  with  the  coolest  intellectual  cunning,  adapt 
ing  it  to  every  age,  nation,  and  exigency,  and 
enabling  it  to  pursue  its  designs  with  continu 
ous  and  varied  forces — its  imposing  ceremonies 
and  pantomimes,  which  seem  like  mummery  to 
the  stranger,  but  to  the  initiated  are  signs  of 
the  mighty  conquests  it  has  achieved  over  the 
mythologies,  the  rites,  and  the  persecutions 
of  antiquity,  as  well  as  promises  of  the  consol 
ing  grace  which  will  again  sustain  it,  should  the 
hand  of  the  enemy  drive  it  once  more  into  the 
catacombs  and  the  caves — its  luxurious  patron- 


212  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

age  of  art,  which  has  preserved  to  us  so  much 
of  all  that  is  best  in  the  touching  music,  the 
lovely  paintings,  and  the  sublime  cathedrals  of 
the  middle  age — and,  above  all,  the  unques 
tionable  ability  of  its  priests,  with  the  long  line 
of  noble  and  beautiful  spirits — Abelards,  Pas 
cals,  and  Fenelons — who  have  illustrated  his 
tory  by  their  culture,  their  piety,  and  their 
genius — these  are  elements  of  greatness  and 
power,  which  it  would  be  folly  as  well  as  blind 
ness  in  any  one  to  overlook  or  deride.  But,  as 
we  are  convinced,  also,  that  there  are  influences 
stronger  than  these — the  influences  of  truth — 
of  the  soul  of  man — of  the  spirit  of  the  age — of 
the  providence  of  God,  which  has  established  a 
moral  order  in  history,  we  are  not  dismayed  by 
the  amount  of  its  ecclesiastical  pretension,  nor 
disheartened  by  any  seeming  facility  or  splendor 
in  its  temporary  successes. 

Least  of  all,  shall  we  allow  ourselves  to  be 
betrayed,  by  the  chronic  terrors  of  Protestants, 
into  an  unjust  judgment  of  Catholics,  and  the 
consequent  perpetration  of  political  wrong.  We 
are  too  familiar  with  the  history  of  religious  con 
troversy,  to  be  hurried  away  by  the  furious  zeal 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         213 

of  agitators,  who  regard  it  as  their  special  mis 
sion  to  arouse  the  world  to  a  proper  dread  of 
the  abuses  of  Popery.  They  are  sincere,  we 
have  no  doubt ;  but  it  is  the  sincerity  of  parti 
sans,  not  of  judges.  They  have  worked  their 
impatience  of  error  up  to  that  inflammatory 
pitch,  where  conviction  becomes  passion.  Of 
tolerable  self-complacency  and  quietude,  in 
other  respects,  they  are  apt  to  be  shaken  out  of 
their  shoes  when  the  subject  of  the  "  Scarlet 
Woman"  is  broached.  It  has  all  the  effect  upon 
them — we  say  it  with  reverence — of  the  red  rag 
upon  some  imperious  turkey,  who,  straightway, 
loses  his  solemn  port  and  dignity,  and  rushes 
wildly  to  the  battle. 

Even  the  more  temperate  polemics,  on  the 
Protestant  side  of  this  controversy,  do  not  al 
ways  restrain  their  ardor  at  judgment-heat. 
Having  convinced  themselves  that  Rome — not 
ecclesiasticisni  in  general,  but  the  particular 
branch  of  it  called  Rome — is  the  great  Anti- 
Christ  of  Scripture,  they  incontinently  belabor 
her  with  every  variety  of  scriptural  reproba 
tion.  All  the  monstrous  types  of  apocalyptic 
zoology,  the  beasts  with  seven  heads  and  ten 


214  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

horns,  the  red  and  black  horses,  the  eagles,  the 
calves,  and  the  fiery  flying  serpents,  are  made 
to  find  in  her  their  living  resemblance,  while 
she  is  loudly  proclaimed  to  be  the  man  of  per 
dition,  the  mother  of  harlots,  the  mystic  Baby 
lon,  who  makes  the  nations  "  drunk  with  the 
wine  of  the  wrath  of  her  fornications."* 

It  happens,  unfortunately  for  the  Church, 
that  it  is  not  difficult  to  give  plausibility  to 
these  views,  and,  to  some  extent,  a  justification 
of  such  reactionary  hatreds,  from  the  records 
of  history.  Ecclesiastical  annals  (and  the  same 
is  true,  perhaps,  of  all  other  annals),  tried  by 
the  standard  of  existing  opinions,  are  so  full  of 
whatever  is  insolent  in  assumption,  corrupt  in 
morals,  cunning  and  treacherous  in  fraud,  and 
detestable  in  tyranny,  that  a  mere  tyro,  with  a 
case  to  make  out,  might  draw  pictures  from 
them  that  would  frighten  a  college  of  cardinals, 
and  much  more  a  conclave  of  credulous  zealots. 
Dip  into  these  annals  anywhere,  but  especially 


*  In  this  application,  however,  of  the  great  symbols  of  the 
Apocalypse  to  actual  events,  instead  of  spiritual  truths,  they 
have  the  illustrious  precedent  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  Machia- 
velli,  and  some,  even,  who  lived  in  the  previous  century. 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         215 

into  what  relates  to  the  doings  from  the  ninth 
to  the  fifteenth  centuries,  and  how  much  wick 
edness  of  every  kind  you  meet !  What  au 
dacity,  licentiousness,  superstition,  ignorance, 
fraud,  uproar,  and  cruel  ferocity  of  persecu 
tion  !  The  dread  power  of  the  Papacy  seems 
to  bestride  those  ages  like  a  gigantic  spectre 
of  the  Brocken.  It  rises  before  us  as  some 
thing  awful,  mysterious,  and  desolating.  Re 
moved,  as  we  are  by  many  generations,  from 
the  scenes  of  its  action,  we  still  see  the  flash 
of  its  lightnings,  and  still  hear  the  roar  of  its 
thunders,  as  the  bolts  fall  swiftly  and  terribly 
about  the  heads  of  emperors  and  kings.  The 
air  is  sultry  with  a- fee  ling  of  oppression ;  and  the 
soul,  in  its  recoil  from  the  gloom  and  sorrow 
that  darkens  and  sobs  around  it,  loses  all  sense 
of  the  true  proportions  of  things,  and  fancies  that 
everything  was  evil  then,  and  nothing  good. 

But,  take  up  any  party  or  principle,  in  an 
unfriendly  spirit,  to  trace  its  affinities  among 
the  parties  and  principles  of  former  times,  and 
you  may  place  it  in  similarly  disreputable  com 
pany.  Thus,  you  may  illustrate  monarchy  by 
the  excesses  of  the  Oriental  kings,  or  the  Ro- 


216  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

man  Caesars ;  you  may  make  aristocracy  re 
sponsible  for  the  nobles  of  the  middle  ages  ;  and 
democracy  for  the  peasant-wars  and  French 
revolutions  of  a  later  day.  A  person  opposed 
to  the  Church  of  England,  might  say  that  it  is 
still  an  unrepealed  canon  with  her  that  papists 
and  dissenters  may  be  choked  to  death  for  their 
errors.*  Another,  opposed  to  Calvinism,  would 
show  Calvin,  Beza,  and  Melancthon  urging  the 
incremation  of  Servetus.  A  third  would  tell  us 
of  the  Huguenots  roasting  papal  priests,  while 
they  were  themselves  singed  with  the  fires  of 
St.  Bartholomew  ;  or  of  the  Scotch  parliament, 
with  eight  thousand  Scotchmen  dead  at  the 
hands  of  the  Stuarts,  decreeing  death  against 
the  profession  of  Episcopacy ;  or,  of  the  good 
Puritans,  flying  to  the  wilderness  to  escape  and 
to  establish  spiritual  despotism.  In  short,  no 
sect  or  party  can  look  with  entire  complacency 
upon  the  deeds  of  its  ancestors,  and  no  sect  or 
party  has  a  right  to  interpret  the  great  lessons 
of  history  in  a  narrow,  sectarian  spirit. 

Now,  it  seems  to  us,  that  the  Catholics  are 

*  See  Arnold's  Miscellaneous  "Works,  page  188,  Apple- 
ton's  edition. 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR   THE    POPE?  217 

criticised  too  entirely  in  this  one-sided  way. 
Their  opponents,  drawing  a  drag-net  through 
the  impure  streams  of  the  middle-ages,  bespat 
ter  them  with  all  the  rubbish  that  the  cast 
brings  up.  It  is  forgotten  that  those  ages  were 
ages,  in  many  respects,  of  the  grossest  barbarism 
and  blindness ;  that  anarchy  and  outrage  reigned 
everywhere ;  that  opinion  was  unformed,  and 
authorities  at  war ;  and  that  if  the  conduct  of 
the  hierarchy,  stretching  across  such  long  pe 
riods  of  general  violence,  exhibits  much  that  is 
rapacious,  cruel,  and  malignant,  it  was  often 
redeeemed  by  the  valuable  services  which  the 
same  hierarchy  rendered  to  the  cause  of  learn 
ing,  art,  social  discipline,  popular  progress,  and 
European  unity. 

The  representations,  therefore,  which  dwell 
upon  the  evils  of  those  times  exclusively,  are 
violent  daubs  or  grotesque  caricatures,  and  not 
historical  pictures.  They  remind  us  of  certain 
galleries  in  Italy,  where  the  walls  teem  with 
fagots,  stakes,  gridirons,  broiling  martyrs,  and 
a  horrible  array  of  distorted  human  anatomy, 
unrelieved  by  one  sweet  face,  or  a  single  smil 
ing  landscape. 
10 


218  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

We  have  DO  disposition  to  palliate  the  horrid 
deeds  of  ancient  churchmen,  nor  to  disguise  the 
lessons  of  history ;  but  we  think  that,  at  this 
late  day,  ecclesiastical  battles  might  be  fought 
with  other  weapons  than  those  the  illustrious 
Molly  Seagrim  used,  when  she  drove  her  neigh 
bors  out  of  the  sacred  enclosure  with  thigh 
bones,  skulls,  and  bits  of  old  tomb-stone. 
History  is  only  instructive  when  it  is  read  in 
the  light  of  philosophy.  Its  events  cannot  be 
properly  used  as  isolated  facts,  nor  the  charac 
ters  it  presents  us  judged  of  by  the  standards 
of  modern  opinion.  Every  age  and  nation  must 
be  viewed  in  its  peculiar  relations.  Every  age 
and  nation  has  its  own  methods  and  its  own 
ideas.  The  boy  is  not  the  man ;  the  man  of 
the  ninth  century  is  not  the  man  of  the  nine 
teenth  ;  and  the  etiquette  of  the  court  of  Queen 
Victoria  cannot  be  applied  to  the  court  of 
Queen  Pomare.  That  which  might  have  been 
good  government,  in  one  time  and  place,  would 
be  very  bad  government  in  another  time  and 
place  ;  and  a  course  of  conduct  which  seems 
simply  impudent  and  senile  in  Gregory  XVI., 
may  have  beeeu  exalted  and  beneficial  in 
Gregory  VII. 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         219 

These  remarks,  commonplace  as  they  are, 
have  an  important  bearing  upon  the  particular 
question  before  us — the  temporal  power  of  the 
Popes — which  is  commonly  treated  as  if  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  could  be  revived, 
and  old  Hildebrand — true  son  of  fire,  as  he  was 
named — start  again  from  the  grave  where  he 
has  rested  nearly  a  thousand  years.  They  for 
get  that  that  power  is  no  longer  a  present  ter 
ror,  but  a  simple  historical  phenomenon.  It 
had  its  origin  in  the  inevitable  circumstances 
and  necessities  of  society,  at  a  particular  stage 
of  its  progress,  and,  having  served  its  ends, 
sometimes  salutary,  and  sometimes  quite  other 
wise,  it  has  been  dismissed  by  a  kind  Provi 
dence  to  the  limbo  of  things  not  wanted  on 
earth. 

In  illustration,  let  us  refer  to  a  few  promi 
nent  historical  facts,  as  to  the  origin  and  cul 
mination  of  the  papal  power : 

1.  The  foundation  of  every  temporal  or  spir 
itual  enormity,  into  which  the  Church  was 
destined  to  run,  was  laid  in  the  opinion,  which 
early  obtained,  that  Christ  had  founded  an  ex 
ternal  institution,  to  be  the  medium  of  the  new 


220  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

and  divine  life.  It  was  not  only  an  unavoida 
ble  inference  from  this,  in  logic,  that  such  a 
body  should  be  supreme  in  its  moral  authority, 
but  it  was  also  an  unavoidable  practical  deduc 
tion  that  the  administrators  of  its  ordinances 
should  become  among  the  most  wealthy  and 
powerful  personages  in  secular  society. 

2.  The  conversion  of  Constantine  added  pro 
digiously  to  the  temporalities  of  the  Church, 
but,  most  of  all,  by  conferring  judicial  and  civil 
jurisdiction  upon  the  bishops.     His  successors 
pursued  the  same  policy,  with  some  exceptions, 
and  anybody  who  will  read  the  Theodosian  and 
Justinian  codes,  will  see  that  the  clergy,  long 
before  the  fifth  century,  were  in  the  possession 
of  large  patrimonies,  were  joined  in  the  civil 
and  financial  administration  of  the  provinces, 
were  judges  in  the  courts  allowed  to  decree 
temporal  penalties,  and  often  took  part  in  the 
imperial  councils. 

3.  In  the  distribution  of  ecclesiastical  rank, 
following  generally  the  political  divisions  of 
the  Empire,  the  preeminence  fell,  of  course,  to 
the  See  of  the  imperial  city — the  foremost  city 
of  the  world.     Its  local  position,  fortified  by 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?        221 

old  renown,  and  the  traditions  of  St.  Peter's 
special  favor,  made  it  a  centre  of  attraction  and 
reverence  to  the  faithful  everywhere,  but  par 
ticularly  to  the  churches  among  the  barbarians, 
which  its  zeal  had  planted,  and  which  were 
ever  eager  to  testify  their  respect  and  submis 
sion  to  the  venerable  mother. 

4.  When  the  Empire  was  transferred  to  the 
East — an  event  that  ought  to  have  diminished 
the  importance  of  the  Roman  Church — it  hap 
pened  that  the  distractions  of  the  times  turned 
that  event  into  an  occasion  of  its  increasing 
power.  The  emperors,  absorbed  in  their  east 
ern  troubles,  left  the  Church  almost  the  only 
authority  in  the  western  provinces.  Their  rep 
resentatives,  the  miserable  exarchs,  for  the  most 
part  plunderers  and  despots,  could  not  rival  the 
priests  in  the  affections  of  the  people.  As  the 
imperial  authority  grew  weaker,  therefore,  the 
authority  of  the  Roman  Bishop  grew  stronger. 
The  senate,  as  well  as  the  populace,  came  to 
regard  him  as  their  true  head  ;  so  that  the  Em 
peror,  no  longer  able  to  control  his  affairs,  and 
glad  of  the  assistance  of  so  eminent  and  influ 
ential  a  lieutenant,  readily  confirmed  the  pow- 


222  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ers  which  necessity,  no  less  than  general  con 
sent,  had  conferred. 

5.  When,  finally,  the  Popes  threw  off  the 
reins  of  the  Emperors,  and  invited  the  King 
of  the  Franks  to  protect  them  from  the  savage 
incursions  of  the  Lombards,  it  was  clear  that 
the  Emperors  were  too  weak  to  defend  and 
retain  the  Italian  provinces,  and  the  exigency 
absolutely  required  an  extraordinary  interven 
tion.     The  policy  of  Stephen  II.  and  Adrian  I., 
then,  which  gave  great  extension  to  the  tem 
poral  sovereignty  of  the  Popes,  was  quite  in 
evitable  under  the  circumstances.  They  stepped 
in  to  save  society  at  a  time  when  there  was 
nobody  else  in  a  position,  or  having  the  will,  to 
do  so ;    and  Pepin   and    Charlemagne,   as   the 
actual  conquerors  of  the  Lombards,  when  they 
confirmed,  by  solemn  grants,  the  possessions  of 
St.  Peter,  gave  the  only  constitutional  sanction, 
known  to  the  laws  of  the  epoch,  to  what  was 
held  by  the  more  legitimate  title  of  ability, 
virtue,   service,   and  the  tacit  consent  of  the 
people. 

6.  In  the  midst  of  the  turbulent  and  almost 
anarchical  feudal  society,  the  Pope  appeared, 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR    THE    POPE?  223 

not  only  as  a  prince  among  princes,  but  as  a 
prince  superior  to  all  princes,  by  virtue  of  his 
peculiar  ecclesiastical  eminence.  He  was  natu 
rally  resorted  to  as  an  umpire  in  the  settlement 
of  disputes,  and  large  fiefs  were  added  to  his 
jurisdiction,  either  to  propitiate  his  favor  or  as 
a  reward  for  distinguished  services.  As  the 
laws  of  the  Roman  empire,  moreover,  had  been 
principally  retained  in  the  monarchies  which 
succeeded  it,  all  the  immunities  and  privileges 
of  the  clergy  were  preserved,  and  even  extend 
ed,  and  their  intimate  association  with  the 
temporal  power  enlarged. 

7.  The  Holy  See,  at  once  the  centre  of  re 
ligion  and  learning,  was  also  the  only  authority 
of  any  kind  universally  acknowledged.  The 
princes,  at  war  perpetually  amongst  them 
selves,  each  in  turn  invoked  its  aid  against  the 
encroachments  of  his  neighbors.  They  were 
all  equally  solicitous  to  secure  its  favor,  even 
to  the  extent  of  consenting  to  do  homage  for 
their  kingdoms,  as  if  they  were  held  from  the 
Pope.  Nor  were  the  Popes,  whose  conduct 
exhibited  a  singular  mixture  of  zealous  piety 
and  worldly  ambition,  backward  in  accepting  a 


224  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

vassalage  tendered  alike  from  motives  of  inter 
est  and  devotion.  In  proof  of  the  state  of  feel 
ing,  we  may  mention  that,  when  the  crusades 
came  on,  sovereigns  and  soldiers  alike,  regard 
ing  the  Popes  as  the  natural  leaders  of  the 
great  religious  wars,  often  placed  their  persons 
and  properties  under  their  protection.  Politi 
cal  affairs  were  arranged  in  the  Pope's  presence, 
treaties  concluded,  routes  of  inarch  selected, 
and  questions  of  precedence  decided. 

8.  The  right  to  depose  princes,  however, 
grew  more  directly  out  of  the  power  of  excom 
munication,  which  the  Church  had  asserted 
from  the  earliest  times.  At  first,  this  ban 
worked  only  a  forfeiture  of  ecclesiastical  rights, 
but  after  the  sovereigns  took  the  Church  in 
hand,  civil  disabilities  were  attached  to  its 
infliction.  The  unhappy  person  who  incurred 
it,  was  not  only  shut  out  of  the  assemblies  of 
the  faithfiii,  and  banished  their  society,  but  he 
was  declared  civilly  dead,  and  his  dignities, 
rights,  and  possessions,  fell  away  from  him, 
like  leaves  from  a  tree  smitten  by  the  light 
ning.  All  the  legislation  of  the  princes  con 
curred  in  giving  validity  to  ecclesiastical  laws, 


SHOULD    WE   FEAR   THE    POPE?  225 

and  in  confirming  the  jurisdiction  of  bishops 
by  civic  penalties.  When  the  Popes,  there 
fore,  insisting  upon  the  impartiality  of  God's 
judgments,  which  could  make  no  distinction 
between  peasant  and  prince,  applied  the  same 
ban  to  sovereigns  which  they  applied  to  serfs, 
they  exercised  a  power  to  which  the  sovereigns 
themselves  had  consented,  and  whose  legiti 
macy  they  never  questioned  as  to  its  general 
grounds,  and  only  as  to  the  justice  of  its  appli 
cation  in  the  particular  case. 

Thus,  innumerable  circumstances  in  the  po 
litical  relations,  the  external  events,  and  the 
moral  opinions  of  the  time,  prepared  the  way 
for  those  tremendous  assertions  of  supreme 
temporal  sovereignty,  which  were  begun  by 
Gregory  VII.,  in  his  deposition  of  Henry,  and 
continued  with  vigor,  for  two  or  three  centu 
ries,  by  his  successors.  They  are  circumstances 
which  do  not  wholly  acquit  the  Popes  of  the 
charge  of  usurpation,  but  which  yet  show  that 
their  conduct  was  not,  as  it  is  often  represented 
to  have  been,  utterly  indefensible.  There  was 

a  color  of  law  even  for  their  most  high-handed 
10* 


226  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

interferences,  sanctioned  as  they  were  by  the 
political  constitution  of  the  age,  no  less  than 
by  its  prevailing  religious  convictions. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  this  system  of  conjoint 
spiritual  and  temporal  authority  had  its  rise  in 
the  circumstances  of  the  time,  so  it  found  its 
fall  in  its  own  inherent  weakness.  Viewed 
absolutely,  it  was  a  violation  of  both  reason 
and  religion,  and  was  only  provisionally  a  good. 
At  the  height  of  its  prevalence,  it  was  already 
dissolving.  Firstly,  it  could  not  escape  re 
flecting  minds,  that  every  resort  to  force,  direct 
or  indirect,  by  a  body  professing  a  spiritual 
origin  and  genesis,  was  fundamentally  incon 
sistent  with  its  nature  and  end,  and  these 
minds  were  more  or  less  openly  at  war  with 
the  policy  of  the  Church.  In  the  second  place, 
the  enormous  wealth  which  flowed  into  its 
treasury,  in  consequence  of  its  vast  temporal 
sway,  corrupted  the  clergy,  and  lost  them  the 
respect  of  the  more  severe  and  pure  of  their 
own  order  as  well  as  that  of  the  laics.  And 
then,  again,  the  possession  of  a  great  and  al 
most  uncontrolled  power  degenerates  inevit 
ably  into  a  two-fold  source  of  abuses ;  firstly, 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR    THE    POPE  ?  227 

in  that  it  becomes  a  lure  to  all  kinds  of  selfish 
and  reckless  ambition,  and  secondly,  in  that  it 
gets  impatient  of  resistance,  and  persecutes 
instead  of  persuading. 

Accordingly,  we  see  many  examples  of  the 
operation  of  all  these  principles,  before  the 
opening  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  which, 
indeed,  kept  pace  with  the  growing  domination 
of  the  hierarchy.  Internal  corruption  and  ex 
ternal  outrage  bred  resistance,  both  within  and 
without.  When  Boniface  VIII.  entered  upon 
his  contest  with  Philip  le  Bel,  of  France,  he  ap 
peared  to  himself  and  to  his  friends  to  advance 
with  all  the  strength  of  the  great  Gregory, 
while,  in  reality,  the  moral  and  popular  sup 
port,  which  had  been  the  strength  of  Gregory, 
had  already  collapsed.  In  the  south  of  France, 
the  infamous  crusade  against  the  Albigenses 
had  detached  a  numerous  and  powerful  body; 
similar  disaffections  had  estranged  the  whole 
of  Flanders ;  the  thoughts  which  shortly  after 
found  vent  in  the  immortal  poem  of  Dante,  the 
great  father  of  Protestantism  and  the  modern 
era,  were  fermenting  in  Italy ;  distant  England 
was  heaving  with  the  birth  of  Wickliffe ;  -and 


228  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  cultivators  of  ancient  learning,  even,  had, 
in  the  silence  of  the  monasteries,  begun  to 
manifest  an  abated  respect  for  a  clergy  whose 
vices  were  as  conspicuous  as  they  were  dis 
graceful.  Boniface  was,  therefore,  virtually 
defeated,  and,  in  his  defeat,  the  system  itself 
received  a  fatal  blow.  Like  one  who  came 
after  him,  he  might  have  exclaimed  that  both 
he  and  his  system  had  ventured  too  far  upon 
the  sea  of  glory,  and  were  left — 

tl  Weary  and  old  with  service,  to  the  mercy 
Of  a  rude  stream,  that  must  forever  hide  them." 

That  stream  was  the  awakening  life  of  Chris 
tendom,  inside  and  outside  of  the  Church, 
which,  dissolving  the  Papacy  into  the  great  and 
damaging  "  western  schism,"  gathered  strength 
from  the  revival  of  literature,  from  the  growth 
of  the  universities,  from  the  republican  experi 
ments  in  Italy,  from  the  Hussite  rebellion, 
from  the  pragmatic  sanctions  of  France,  from 
the  quickening  activity  of  commerce,  from  the 
progress  of  maritime  discovery,  and  the  dis 
closures  and  inventions  of  science,  until,  finally, 
it  broke  over  Europe,  in  a  broad,  full  tide,  as 
the  Lutheran  Reformation. 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?  ^      229 

The  Temporal  Arm  made,  ever  and  anon, 
during  the  interval,  spasmodic  efforts  to  re 
cover  its  ancient  energy;  but  they  were  like 
the  efforts  of  a  serpent  to  strike,  when  its  back 
is  broken.  For  five  centuries,  now,  its  au 
thority  has  steadily  declined — nor  will  it  ever 
be  revived.  We  should  as  soon  think  of  seeing 
Europe  invaded  again  by  the  Arabs,  or  ths 
Christian  nations  joined  once  more  in  a  crusade 
to  Jerusalem,  or  the  philosophers  of  the  world 
returning  to  the  study  of  alchemy — as  of  be 
holding  the  rejuvenescence  of  the  middle-age 
constitution  of  society,  and  of  its  foster-brother, 
the  old  Roman  court.  Even  the  religious  in 
fluence  of  the  Church,  by  which  alone  its  tem 
poral  pretensions  can  be  sustained,  will  never 
become  again  what  it  was  before  the  Reforma 
tion. 

It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Macaulay,  in  his  brilliant 
essay  on  Ranke's  History  of  the  Popes,  has  re 
marked,  that  the  territorial  division  of  Europe, 
between  the  Catholics  and  the  Protestants,  is 
the  same  now  as  it  was  towards  the  close  of 
the  sixteenth  century ;  that  the  nations  which 
were  Catholic  then — chiefly  the  Southern  or 


230  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Romanic — are  Catholic  still ;  and  those  which 
were  Protestants  then — chiefly  the  Northern  or 
Teutonic  nations — are  Protestants  still ;  while 
neither  Catholic  nor  Protestant  has  mad«  any 
substantial  gains  in  the  large  debatable  ground 
in  the  middle  of  Europe.  But  this  is  true 
only  geographically,  as  Macaulay  himself  more 
than  intimates  ;  for  while  the  physical  frontiers 
of  either  camp  have  not  advanced,  their  moral 
and  intellectual  advances  respectively  have 
been  widely  different.  The  leading  Catholic 
nations,  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
were  Spain  and  Italy,  and  these  have  fallen 
into  decay,  whereas  the  leading  Protestant  na 
tions,  such  as  England  and  North  Germany, 
have  shot  up  prodigiously  in  every  element 
of  vigor.  The  nations  which,  before  Luther, 
commanded  the  civilization  of  the  world,  were 
nations  under  the  control  of  Rome ;  but  the 
nations  which  now  occupy  that  exalted  posi 
tion,  pursue  their  ends  without  a  thought  of 
the  Church.  England,  North  Germany,  and 
the  United  States,  are  openly  Protestant ;  Rus 
sia,  as  the  inheritor  of  Greek  catholicity,  is 
anti-Roman  ;  while  France,  though  nominally 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         231 

Catholic,  is  rather  scientific  than  religious  in 
her  development,  and  is  precisely  the  nation, 
under  her  renowned  Gallic  liberties,  which 
most  strenuously  resists  the  papal  predomin 
ance.  Now,  it  is  this  superiority  of  the  Pro 
testant  nations,  in  intelligence,  activity,  wealth, 
and  freedom,  which  secures  them  forever  from 
conquest,  and  which  will,  sooner  or  later,  com 
pel  the  Catholic  nations  to  follow  in  their 
track.  It  is  Protestantism  which  controls 
civilization  and  the  future  destiny  of  the 
world. 

"  But,"  exclaim  a  thousand  dissentient  voices, 
in  the  face  of  this  reasoning  and  all  these  facts, 
"  Romanism,  by  its  own  showing,  remains  for 
ever  unchangeable  and  unchanged.  Its  pre 
lates  and  its  official  organs  adhere  as  tenacious 
ly  to  the  temporal  supremacy  of  the  Pope 
now  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  the  Hohen- 
stauffen  and  John  Lackland ;  and,  whenever, 
and  wherever  they  can,  will  hasten  to  enforce 
its  claims." 

"We  deny  the  truth  of  this  position,  and  we 
scout  the  inferences  which  are  attached  to  it, 
to  frighten  us  out  of  our  seven  senses. 


232  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  we  remark  that  this 
doctrine  is  not  an  established  doctrine  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  It  is  simply  a  scntentia  in 
ccclcsia — an  unadjudicated  question,  without 
positive  authority,  and  incumbent  upon  no 
one's  faith.  A  Catholic  may  believe  what  he 
pleases  on  that  subject,  and  yet  be  a  good 
Catholic ;  he  may  utterly  deny  all  manner  of 
temporal  allegiance  to  the  Pope,  and  yet  be  a 
good  Catholic ;  in  short,  the  only  allegiance 
expected  of  him,  by  the  laws  of  the  Church, 
is  a  belief  of  its  dogmas,  and  a  submission  to 
its  moral  discipline. 

In  regard  to  the  ground  and  extent  of  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Pope,  two  parties 
exist,  and  have  long  existed,  in  the  Church. 
The  first,  the  Ultramontane  or  theological 
party,  contend  that  the  Pope  and  Church  have 
received,  immediately  from  God,  full  power  to 
govern  the  world,  both  in  spirituals  and  tem 
porals.*  In  its  naked  form,  however,  this 
theory,  started  by  John  of  Salisbury,  in  the 
twelfth  century,  found  but  few  advocates. 

*  Gosselin,  on  the  Power  of  the  Popes,  vol.  i.,  p.  360. 


SHOULD   WE    FEAR   THE    POPE?  233 

About  the  close  of  the  sixteenth,  therefore, 
Bellarmin,  and  other  systematic  writers,  were 
obliged  to  modify  it  into  this  shape  :  That  the 
Church  has  received  from  God,  directly  and 
immediately,  no  power  over  temporals,  but 
over  spirituals  solely  ;  and  that  this  power  in 
cludes,  indirectly,  the  power  of  governing  tem 
porals  when  the  good  of  religion  requires  it,  or 
in  certain  extraordinary  cases,  wiien  it  is  ren 
dered  necessary  for  the  salvation  of  souls. 
This  is  the  sense  in  which  the  doctrine  is  held 
by  most  of  the  Ul tramontanes,  though  some 
of  them  modify  it  still  more,  so  as  to  restrict 
the  right  of  the  Church  to  a  single  right  to  de 
clare  the  cases  in  which  a  sovereign  has  forfeit 
ed  his  authority,  and  subjects  are  absolved  from 
their  allegiance — as  cases  of  conscience.  But 
the  Pope  can  use  no  direct  means  for  enforcing 
this  declaration,  which  can  only  be  put  in  exe 
cution  by  the  temporal  order.  Mr.  Brownson, 
who  is  more  obstreperous  than  anybody  else 
in  vindicating  extreme  opinions,  denies  that 
the  Pope  can  interfere  generally  in  the  civil 
affairs  of  states,  or  resort  directly  to  the  strong 
arm.  For  that  he  must  appeal  to  the  civil 


234  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

authority.  "The  Pope,"  he  says,  "does  not 
make  the  law  under  which  the  prince  holds, 
and  can  declare  him  deposed  only  when  he  has 
forfeited  his  rights  by  the  law  under  which  lie 
still  holds.  The  act  of  deposition  is  judicial, 
not  legislative." 

It  is  this  indirect  Ultramontanism  which  is 
in  the  ascendant  among  the  higher  clergy  and 
official  organs  of  the  Church.  The  Popes  in 
cline  to  it,  because  it  extends  their  preroga 
tives  ;  the  college  of  cardinals  favors  it,  be 
cause  every  cardinal  expects  some  time  or  other 
to  be  Pope ;  the  Jesuits,  we  believe,  swear  to 
it,  and  a  majority  of  other  religious  orders  re 
ceive  it,  together  with  many  of  the  Spanish 
and  Italian  bishops,  some  of  the  German  and 
French,  and  the  leading  journals — such  as  the 
Civiltd  Cattolicd,  at  Rome,  the  Historische  Poll- 
tische  Blatter,  of  Germany,  the  Univers  in  Paris, 
the  Dublin  Tablet,  and  Brownson's  Quarterly. 

The  second  party,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Gallic  or  legist  party,  hold  that  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  powers  are  equally  sovereign  in 
their  respective  spheres,  and  independent  of 
each  other ;  and  that  the  Popes  and  Councils 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?        235 

which  have  interfered  in  the  temporal  affairs 
of  states  have  done  so,  either  under  the  hu 
man  and  constitutional  laws  of  former  epochs, 
or  from  an  erroneous  view  of  their  duty.  The 
Catholic  clergy  of  France,  in  16S2,  in  the 
famous  Declarations,  which  are  the  basis  of  the 
Cisalpine  doctrine,  said :  "  Kings  and  sovereigns 
are  not  subjected  to  any  ecclesiastical  power, 
by  the  order  of  God,  in  temporal  things  ;  and 
their  subjects  cannot  be  released  from  their 
obedience,  nor  absolved  from  their  oath  of  alle 
giance."  These  declarations  were  'eloquently 
defended  by  Bossuet.  The  six  Catholic  Uni 
versities,  consulted  by  Pitt,  in  1789 — three 
Spanish,  and  three  French — took  this  view, 
and  earnestly  declared  that  "  neither  the  Car 
dinals,  the  Pope,  nor  even  the  Church  herself, 
has  any  jurisdiction  or  power,  by  divine  right, 
over  the  temporals  of  kings,  sovereigns,  or 
subjects,"  etc.  The  Irish  committee,  of  1792, 
made  a  similar  deposition,  in  behalf  of  all  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  which  was  repeated  be 
fore  the  House  of  Commons  by  all  the  Irish 
bishops  in  1826.  All  the  old  Catholic  families 
of  England  take  this  view,  with  a  large  num- 


236  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

ber  of  the  German  and  French  bishops,  and 
nearly  all  of  those  in  the  United  States.  As 
to  the  laity  of  the  Church,  they  do  not  bother 
their  brains  much  about  the  dispute  ;  the  more 
ignorant  of  them  clinging  to  the  Church  be 
cause  it  has  been  their  fathers'  church,  and  the 
nursing-mother  of  their  superstitions  ;  and  the 
more  enlightened,  because  they  find,  in  its  doc 
trines  and  ceremonies,  a  genuine  solace  for  their 
religious  feelings. 

We  may  regard  the  controversy,  on  the 
whole,  then,  as  a  kind  of  drawn  battle — some 
times  one  party  is  in  the  ascendant  and  some 
times  the  other — the  Ultramontanes  seeming 
to  carry  the  victory  always  in  numbers,  and 
the  Gallicans  always  in  argument ;  but,  whe 
ther  the  one  or  the  other  prevail,  it  need  be 
no  cause  to  us  either  of  extravagant  alarm  or 
extravagant  joy. 

For,  in  the  second  place,  we  remark,  that, 
whatever  may  be  the  state  of  opinion  among 
Catholics,  the  claim  of  the  Popes  to  temporal 
power  is  not  at  all  formidable,  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  world.  Churchmen  may  con 
ceit  what  they  please  about  the  unchangeable 


SHOULD   WE   FEAR    THE    POPE?  237 

nature  of  the  Church,  but  the  testimony  of 
reason  and  history  is  that  it  does  change,  with 
its  changes  of  place,  and  the  advancing  aspects 
of  society.  It  is  no  more  now,  what  it  wras 
when  the  monk  of  Clugni  caused  the  poor 
German  Emperor  to  wait  his  insolent  leisure 
three  days  in  the  cold,  than  the  Knights  Tem 
plar  are  now  what  they  were  then.  It  is  one 
thing  at  Berlin  and  London,  and  another  at 
Valladolid  or  Bologna.  The  catechism  which 
it  circulates  in  France  is  not  the  catechism 
which  it  circulates  in  Portugal.  Nor  is  this 
owing  to  policy  alone.  The  force  of  circum 
stances,  and  the  existing  tone  of  manners  and 
opinions,  circumscribe  and  transform  it,  just 
as  every  other  institution  is  modified  by  the 
medium  in  which  it  subsists.  What  the  Papa 
cy  would  be,  then,  if  it  could,  is  a  question  of 
no  practical  moment.  What  would  any  sect 
or  party  be,  if  unrestrained  by  adverse  parties 
or  sects  ?  Sydney  Smith  well  says  :  "  One 
does  not  know  the  order  or  description  of  men 
in  whom  he  would  like  to  confide,  if  they 
could  do  as  they  would;  our  security  consisting 
in  the  fact  that  the  rest  of  the  world  won't  let 


238  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Jem."  Now,  the  rest  of  the  world  will  not 
allow  the  Pope,  nor  anybody  else,  to  do  as  he 
pleases,  let  him  want  to  ever  so  badly ;  and, 
until  the  Pope,  particularly,  has  reconverted  the 
world  to  Catholicism,  which  will  be  a  consid 
erable  undertaking,  he  may  have  as  much  will  to 
thunder  as  he  likes,  but  he  will  thunder  in  vain. 
Consider  the  history  of  the  papal  attempts  to 
exert  even  a  limited  temporal  authority,  during 
the  last  three  centuries.  The  Pope  rattled 
away,  like  a  good  fellow,  against  Louis  XIV. ; 
but  Louis  was  hardly  civil  to  him.  kissing  his 
feet,  as  Voltaire  says,  but  tying  up  his  hands. 
He  was  dreadfully  angry,  again,  with  Philip  V 
of  Spain ;  but  he  could  not  hinder  Philip  from 
going  his  own  gait,  nor  prevent  the  Cortes, 
subsequently,  from  destroying  the  monastic 
institutions,  and  confiscating  the  Church  pro 
perty.  He  tried  his  power  on  Portugal,  and 
was  repulsed  from  Portugal,  just  as  if  it  had 
been  Protestant ;  on  Venice,  and  the  Senate 
disdained  his  legate ;  on  Austria,  whither  he 
went  personally,  but  was  complacently  bowed 
home  again  ;  and  on  Napoleon,  who  laughed  at 
him,  and  used  him  afterwards. 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR    THE    POPE?  239 

At  the  very  moment,  indeed,  in  which  we 
pen  this  paragraph,  the  morning  paper,  fresh 
with  foreign  news,  informs  us  that  Spain — Ca 
tholic  Spain,  as  she  is  called,  by  way  of  emi 
nence — as  she  has  been  called  these  thousand 
years ;  where  the  Koman  Church  is  the  only 
church  that  has  ever  been  recognized  by  the 
state,  where  a  numerous  and  influential  clergy 
are  paid  from  the  treasury  of  the  State,  where 
they  enjoy  the  highest  rank  and  consideration, 
where  the  entire  people,  in  fact,  are  proud  to 
hail  their  monarchs  as  Most  Catholic  Majesties 
— Spain,  we  say,  has  just  passed  a  law,  releasing 
property  in  mortmain,  or,  in  other  words,  turn 
ing  into  money  the  consecrated  lands  and 
dwellings  of  the  clergy  and  the  religious  orders, 
in  the  very  teeth,  too,  of  the  Pope,  and  all  his 
wire-workers  and  adherents. 

Indeed,  since  the  Restoration,  when  the  allies 
complimented  him  with  devout  pretenses  and 
apparent  obsequiousness,  but  betrayed  him  to 
the  State  at  the  same  time,  not  a  government 
on  earth,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  has  treated 
his  temporal  holiness  with  a  whit  more  decorum 
than  is  due  to  an  illustrious  prince — one  among 


240  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  powers  of  Europe.  They  respect  his  im 
portant  ecclesiastical  position,  and  the  venerable 
associations  by  which  his  See  is  surrounded, 
and,  as  far  as  their  subjects  are  Catholic,  are 
more  or  less  tender  of  giving  offense  ;  but  they 
do  not  succumb  one  tittle  to  any  right  or  claim 
of  his  to  meddle  with  their  civil  interests.  On 
the  contrary,  they  resent  it  with  a  kind  of  por 
cupine  irritability.  One  of  the  most  recent 
Ultramontane  writers,  lamenting  the  desuetude 
into  which  the  temporal  arm  has  fallen,  says, 
that  the  worst  enemies  which  the  Church  has 
had  to  contend  with,  the  last  two  hundred 
years,  have  not  been  either  Protestants  or 
Turks,  but  the  professedly  Catholic  govern 
ments  of  Europe.  "  These  nominal  Catholic 
sovereigns."  he  says  lugubriously,  "  professing 
themselves  to  be  sons  of  the  Church,  contribut 
ing,  it  may  be,  to  the  maintenance  of  the  clergy, 
and  to  the  pomp  and  splendor  of  worship  ;  per 
haps,  like  Louis  XIV.,  going  so  far  as  to  tolerate 
no  worship  but  the  Catholic,  and  using  their 
military  force  to  suppress  hostile  sects,  yet 
constantly  encroaching  on  the  ecclesiastical 
authority  ;  demanding  concession  after  conces- 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         241 

sion,  and  threatening  universal  spoliation  and 
schism,  if  the  Church  does  not  accede  to  their 
peremptory  demands,  backed  by  the  whole 
physical  force  of  the  kingdom,  are  really  more 
injurious  to  the  cause  of  religion,  more  hostile 
to  the  influences  of  the  Church,  than  open  and 
avowed  persecutors,  even  the  most  cruel.  We 
cannot  name  a  single  professedly  Catholic  State 
that  has  afforded,  for  these  three  hundred  years, 
more  than  a  momentary  consolation  to  the  Holy 
Father,  whose  bitterest  enemies  have  been  of 
his  own  household  ;  while  "the  only  sovereigns 
in  the  eighteenth,  and  the  first  half  of  the  nine 
teenth  centuries,  that  treated  him  with  respect, 
were  sovereigns  separated  from  his  communion." 
This  is  true  :  yet  not  the  whole  truth  ;  for  it 
conceals  the  worst  feature  of  the  papal  degra 
dation — that  it  is  the  willing  tool  and  vassal  of 
the  kings.  If  it  had  been  subjected  simply  by 
the  superior  force  of  its  pseudo  friends,  there 
would  have  been  reason  for  it  to  complain  ;  but 
it  cheerfully  accepts  the  slavery.  It  is,  at  this 
moment,  linked  in  with  every  despotism  of  the 
continent,  lending  itself  to  their  most  nefarious 
schemes;  blessing  the  triumphs  of  their  arms 


242  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

over  popular  hopes,  and  proffering  a  servile 
submission  to  them  in  order  to  divide  the  ill- 
gotten  gains  wrung  from  the  weakness,  the 
ignorance,  and  the  miseries  of  the  people.  Yes  ; 
the  power,  which  of  old  sat  in  judgment  upon 
the  rulers  of  the  earth,  and,  in  its  fierce  contests 
with  them,  became  a  symbol  of  the  aspirations 
and  faith  of  the  multitude,  is  now,  divested  of 
its  ideal  and  representative  character,  and  fallen 
from  its  own  high  schemes  of  superiority  and 
jurisdiction,  the  passive  partner  of  the  secular 
princes ;  protesting, 'when  it  does  protest,  not 
against  the  political  absolutism  of  the  oppres 
sor,  but  against  the  cries  and  struggles  of  the 
oppressed.  It  prefers  the  friendship  of  the 
Czar,  even,  with  his  foreign  religion,  to  the  po 
litical  emancipation  and  religious  regeneration 
of  the  nations  ;  and  is  greatly  more  to  be  feared 
for  the  doctrines  of  abject  submission  to  kings 
which  it  teaches,  than  for  its  imputed  self- 
assertion. 

But,  if  this  be  the  condition  of  things  in 
nations  avowedly  Catholic,  how  preposterous 
the  alarm  which  is  sounded  as  to  the  temporal 
aggressions  of  Popery  in  countries  which  are 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR    THE    POPE  ?  243 

wholly  emancipated.  Let  us  suppose,  for  in 
stance — what  is  absurd  in  itself — that  Pio  Nono 
should  take  it  into  his  head  to  hurl  a  bull  at 
Queen  Victoria,  or  General  Pierce,  for  some 
gross  heretical  malfeasance,  or  for  an  insult  to 
Cardinal  Wiseman,  or  the  legate  Bedini,  what 
would  be  the  effect  ?  A  few  of  the  more  de 
vout  Catholics  would  be  thrown  into  a  flutter, 
others  \vould  mildly  hint  that  the  good  Father 
had  mistaken  his  business,  while  the  world  in 
general  would  explode  in  fits  of  derision.  His 
torians  might,  perhaps,  recall  the  time  when 
such  missives  closed  the  churches,  extinguished 
the  sacrifice  on  the  altar,  suspended  christenings 
and  marriages,  covered  the  images  of  the  saints 
in  mourning,  silenced  the  bells  in  the  towers, 
left  the  dead  unburied,  and  dressed  whole  na 
tions  in  sackcloth  and  ashes ;  but  they  would 
recall  it  as  a  striking  homily  on  the  mutability 
of  human  affairs — while  the  great  body  of  the 
people  would  go  about  their  pursuits,  eating 
and  drinking,  and  marrying  and  giving  in  mar 
riage,  as  utterly  unconscious  that  anything  had 
occurred,  as  a  deaf  man  is  of  the  snapping  of  a 
pistol  behind  his  back. 


244  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  ours  is  the 
last  in  which  the  temporal  pretensions  of  the 
Pontiff,  supposing  them  to  be  still  cherished, 
will  make  any  headway.  The  democratic  prin 
ciple,  of  the  right  of  the  people  to  manage  their 
own  affairs,  is  so  thoroughly  ingrained  in  our 
whole  political  life,  that  fire  will  not  burn,  nor 
water  drown,  it  out  of  us.  We  should  a  great 
deal  rather  attempt  to  take  Sebastopol  with 
pop-guns,  than  to  convert  this  nation  to  an  ac 
quiescence  in  the  old  monarchical  and  religious 
tyrannies.  Individuals  of  recusant  sympathies 
will,  of  course,  now  and  then  take  shelter  under 
the  wings  of  the  Pope ;  Catholicism,  as  a  reli 
gion,  will  gain  converts  from  time  to  time ; 
but,  as  a  political  power,  it  will  find  the  cur 
rent  ever  setting  more  strongly  the  other  way. 
Rome  is  far  more  likely  to  become  American, 
under  the  influences  at  work  here,  than  America 
Roman.  Not  a  single  trait  of  American  cha 
racter,  as  it  has  been  thus  far  developed,  har 
monizes  with  the  genius  of  that  court — not  a 
habit  of  thought,  or  mode  of  action,  peculiar  to 
our  people,  is  cast  in  its  moulds — and  there  is 
no  point  or  feature  of  our  civil  procedure  coin- 


SHOULD  WE  FEAR  THE  POPE?         245 

cident  with  the  structure  of  its  government  or 
the  aims  of  its  polity.  We  are  drifting  further 
and  further  away,  with  the  current  of  the  years, 
not  onl*r  from  Rome,  but  from  every  vestige  of 
ecclesiasticism.  Our  religion  is  less  ritual,  day 
by  day,  and  more  and  more  civic  and  personal. 
Our  literature,  our  practical  enterprise,  our 
actual  -political  tendencies,  in  short,  all  the 
agencies  of  our  civil  and  moral  life,  turn  towards 
a  practical  humanity,  as  the  flower  and  fruit  of 
Christ's  blessed  redemption  of  us,  and  will  not 
return.  The  immense  Irish  emigration,  which 
was  once  supposed  to  threaten,  though  it  never 
actually  molested,  our  safety,  has  reached  its 
height,  and  now  begins  to  slacken.  Already 
the  preponderance  of  numbers  among  the  emi 
grants  has  passed  over  to  the  Germans,  among 
whom  Popery  sits  lightly  upon  those  who  re 
ceive  it,  and  is  more  than  neutralized  by 
the  desperate  rationalistic  bias  of  the  rest. 
Strauss  and  Feuerbach,  we  suspect,  are  the 
saints  of  the  Germans,  who  will  give  our 
Puritan  theologians  more  trouble  than  all  the 
saints  of  the  Romish  calendar ;  and  the  creed 
of  no-creedism  will  seduce  a  larger  number 


246  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  professors  than  the  creed  of  spiritual  sub 
mission. 

We  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  inexpressible 
meanness  of  excluding  all  foreigners  from  poli 
tical  life,  because  a  number  of  them  happen  to 
be  Catholics — Catholics  from  religious  associa 
tion  and  conviction,  and  not  in  the  interests  of 
a  political  propagandism — but  we  shall  urge 
one  simple  thought :  that,  supposing  foreigners 
to  be  all  Romanists,  the  way  to  rescue  them 
from  their  error  is,  not  to  inclose  them,  by  an 
outward  pressure  or  proscription,  into  a  narrow 
circle  of  their  own,  but  to  tempt  them  out  of 
the  fatal  ring,  into  a  freer  air.  If  their  com 
munion  be  haunted  by  foul  superstitions  and 
fanaticisms,  as  sometimes  an  old  decaying  struc 
ture  is  haunted  by  bats  and  owls,  you  will  not 
purify  it  by  closing  the  shutters  and  keeping 
them  in  darkness.  It  is  in  darkness,  precisely, 
that  owls  and  bats  live.  But  let  in  the  light  of 
heaven  upon  them,  let  the  brisk  wind  drink  up 
the  clammy  damps,  let  the  fresh,  warm  sun 
quicken  the  benumbed  and  torpid  limbs,  and 
the  bats  and  owls  will  fly  away ;  for  the  place 
will  be  no  longer  congenial  to  their  habits. 


SHOULD    WE    FEAR    THE    POPE?  247 

It  is  a  great  fact  of  experience,  that,  where 
Protestants  and  Catholics  are  brought  openly 
together,  Catholicism  is  softened  and  liberalized 
— as  in  all  the  frontier  districts  of  Europe — while 
it  retains  whatever  of  evil  it  may  possess,  in  the 
most  unmitigated  forms,  in  the  most  secluded 
districts.  Nay,  both  parties  are  improved  by  the 
association.  How  much,  in  England,  France, 
and  Germany,  have  the  old  hostilities  been 
tempered  by  the  common  medium  in  which 
they  are  diffused  !  while  in  Sweden,  Protestant 
ism,  and  in  Portugal,  Spain,  and  parts  of  Italy, 
Catholicism,  still  exhibit  the  same  hard  features 
which  they  wore  a  hundred  years  ago.  Just  in 
proportion  as  Catholics  are  permitted  to  share 
in  the  civil  life  of  Protestant  nations,  they  have 
thrown  off  the  old  prejudices  of  creed,  and  begun 
to  identify  themselves  with  the  general  feelings 
and  tendencies  of  the  rest  of  the  people. 

In  our  own  country,  particularly,  the  benefi 
cent  and  beautiful  operation  of  democracy  is 
seen,  in  the  silent  and  gentle  influences  by 
which  it  removes  the  old  enmities  of  sect  and 
race.  The  slough  of  a  thousand  errors,  which 
once  Kissed  like  so  many  serpents  in  the  bosom 


248  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  society,  has  been  cast,  we  scarcely  know 
how ;  deep  hatreds,  which  still  burn  in  Europe 
with  intensest  zeal,  dividing  classes  irreparably, 
are  extinguished  here  as  if  by  the  falling  dews; 
and  a  genial  glow  of  common  sentiments  and 
feelings,  warms  into  a  higher,  nobler  humanity 
the  hearts  of  men,  no  longer  curdled  into  petty 
spites  or  rancorous  animosities  by  hostile  divi 
sions  of  privilege  and  interest.  Let  us  beware, 
then,  that  we  do  not  arrest  or  thwart  this 
glorious  development !  Let  us  be  worthy  of 
the  lofty  destiny  to  which  we  have  been  called  ! 
If  we  think  the  dogmas  of  the  Roman  Church 
grievous  errors  ;  if  we  think  its  policy  unfriendly 
to  intellectual  freedom  and  to  republican  go 
vernment;  if  we  should  be  sorry  to  see  it  more 
generally  accepted  ;  let  us  be  sure  that  its  cor 
ruptions,  whatever  they  may  be,  are  to  be  met 
by  argument  and  the  force  of  opinion  only,  and 
not  by  legislation.  Our  fathers,  with  a  wisdom 
as  divine  as  was  ever  vouchsafed  to  any  conclave 
or  synod,  decreed  an  eternal  separation  of 
Church  and  State.  They  forbade  the  use  of 
religious  tests,  in  the  decision  of  civil  rights, 
and  that  prohibition  is  sound  in  spirit  as  well 


SHOULD    WE   FEAR   THE    POPE?  249 

as  letter.  We  hope  that  the  American  people 
will  never  depart  from  it ;  we  hope  that  they 
will  continue  to  exhibit  to  the  world  an  exalted 
example  of  true  charity;  and  we  are  assured 
that,  so  long  as  they  refuse  to  allow  transient 
prejudices  and  local  irritations  to  provoke  them 
from  its  kindly  dictates,  the  heavenly  Father, 
whose  essence  is  goodness,  will  richly  endow 
them  with  every  needed  blessing. 
JUNE,  1855. 
11* 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION, 

IN  the  year  1850,  it  was  decreed  by  con 
ventions  of  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties, 
representing  three-fifths,  at  least,  of  the  people 
who  concern  themselves  with  politics,  that  the 
compromise  measures  were  a  final  settlement, 
"  in  principle  and  in  substance,"  of  the  ques 
tion  of  slavery.  Mr.  Webster,  who  had  con 
tributed  so  much  talent  and  reputation  to  their 
success,  as  he  drew  near  his  death,  congratu 
lated  himself,  and  the  country,  that  there  was 
then  no  part  of  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  in  which  this  subject  had  not  been  dis 
posed  of  by  positive  law.  The  President  of 
the  nation,  even,  in  his  first  message,  was  im 
pelled  to  speak  of  those  measures  as  having 
"  given  renewed  vigor  to  our  institutions,  and 
restored  a  sense  of  repose  and  security  to  the 
public  mind  throughout  the  confederacy  ;"  and 
he  promised  that  this  "  repose  should  suffer  no 


THE    GREAT   QUESTION.  251 

shock  if  he  had  power  to  avert  it,  during  his  ad 
ministration." 

Yet,  those  measures  had  scarcely  been  pro- 
mulged,  their  great  advocate  of  Massachu 
setts  was  hardly  cold  in  his  grave,  the  Presi 
dent  himself  was  but  warm  in  his  chair,  when 
the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question  broke  forth 
anew,  with  a  universality  and  earnestness  of 
feeling  never  before  equaled.  Slavery  became  at 
once  the  real  and  vital  question  of  the  day.  It 
vibrated  in  every  heart,  and  burned  on  every 
tongue.  Older  issues  were  dropped  in  the  in 
tense  excitement  it  occasioned ;  the  ancient 
rallying  cries,  once  so  potent  in  marshaling  the 
electoral  lieges  around  the  standards  of  their 
leaders,  grew  as  charmless  as  the  blasts  of  fish- 
horns,  and  the  freshest  of  political  frenzies, 
the  Know-nothing  excitement,  which,  a  year 
before,  swept  over  the  land  like  a  torrent,  was 
arrested  and  broken  into  foam  by  the  opposing 
waves  of  this  greater  agitation.  The  hopes  of 
a  long  era  of  political  quiet,  engendered  by  the 
reconciling  action  of  Congress  and  the  conven 
tions,  were  dashed  to  the  ground,  and  the  flames 
of  former  feud,  extinguished  for  a  brief  time, 


252  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

were  kindled  once  more  into  a  livelier  energy 
and  glow. 

But  there  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  revived  com 
motion,  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  remark. 
During  the  earlier  periods  of  anti-slavery  ex 
citement,  it  was  mainly  confined  to  men  of  ar 
dent  temperaments  and  extreme  opinion,  to 
abolitionists,  strictly  so-called;  but,  as  things 
are  now,  it  is  shared  by  men  of  tempered  and 
conservative  disposition.  The  cautious  and  the 
wise — heads  silvered  over  with  age,  and  hearts 
which  experience  has  taught  to  beat  in  meas 
ured  pulses — are  joined  with  more  enthusiastic 
spirits  in  a  common  cause.  It  is,  indeed,  no 
exaggeration  to  describe  the  feeling  at  the  North 
as  general.  If  we  except  the  small  joint-stock 
association  which  draws  the  udders  of  the  fede 
ral  government,  and  a  score  or  two  of  effete 
politicians,  who,  like  the  elder  Bourbons,  forget 
nothing  and  learn  nothing,  there  is  not  a  think 
ing  man  among  us  who  is  not  absorbed  in  this 
topic  of  the  domination  and  spread  of  slavery. 

Whence  this  change  ?  Why  are  the  halcyon 
expectations,  which  gathered  about  the  com 
promises  as  a  halo,  dispersed  ?  Why  are  minds, 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  253 

the  least  quick  to  catch  the  impulses  of  the 
times,  carried  away  by  a  prevailing  sentiment  ? 
Why  are  they  compelled  into  coalition  with  those 
for  whom,  a  little  while  ago,  they  felt  no  sym 
pathy,  and  whose  plans  of  policy  they  disap 
proved  ?  Is  it  that  the  hereditary  anti-slavery 
sentiment  of  the  North  has  received  some  new 
and  mysterious  access  of  violence,  like  a  fever 
which  recurs  in  a  more  malignant  type  ?  Is 
it  that  the  people  of  the  North  have  been  sud 
denly  seized  with  some  irrational  annimosity 
towards  their  brethren  of  the  South,  and  rush 
forward,  blindly,  to  the  perpetration  of  an  un 
provoked  injustice  ?  Not  at  all.  There  is 
nothing  thoughtless  or  unkind  in  the  recent 
movement.  It  is  a  legitimate  fruit  of  circum 
stances — a  natural  and  normal  development  of 
events,  which  any  sagacious  student  of  cause 
and  effect  might  have  predicted,  and  which, 
indeed,  was  predicted  by  many  in  the  deepest 
lull  of  1850. 

In  the  first  place,  there  can  be  no  finality  in 
politics,  except  in  the  establishment  of  justice 
and  truth.  Where  society  is  divided  on  a  prin 
ciple,  and  that  principle  involves,  besides  its 


254  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

moral  issues,  vast  practical  interests,  no  parlia 
mentary  device  or  legislative  expedient  can  put 
a  stop  to  the  discussion  of  it — no  compromis 
ing  adjustment  of  it  can  settle  it  forever.  The 
very  attempt  to  settle  it,  in  this  way,  though 
it  may  succeed  in  quelling  an  existing  vehe 
mence  of  agitation,  will,  in  the  end,  provoke  a 
more  vehement  reaction.  For  the  mind  of  man 
is,  in  its  nature,  vital  and  irrepressible  ;  you  may 
force  it  down  but  you  cannot  keep  it  there  ;  its 
inherent  elasticity  will  cause  it  to  spring  back, 
and  in  that  spring,  perhaps,  it  will  tear  into 
shreds  the  cords  by  which  it  was  bound. 
When  the  compromisers  of  1850,  therefore,  un 
dertook  to  suppress  the  discussion  of  slavery, 
they  undertook  what  was  plainly  impossible  ; 
and  much  of  the  exacerbation  which  has  since 
arisen  must  be  referred  to  a  natural  revolt 
against  that  impracticable  enterprise. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  to.  be  re 
marked  a  special  cause  for  the  late  outbreak  of 
anti-slavery  feeling,  and  particularly  for  its  ap 
pearance  among  those  classes  which  have  not 
heretofore  manifested  a  strong  tendency  in  that 
direction.  It  is  this :  that  a  gigantic  fraud 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  255 

has  been  committed  in  the  name  of  slavery, 
which  has  aroused  a  keen  sense  of  wrong,  and 
filled  the  dullest  understandings  with  appre 
hensions  for  the  security  of  our  future  liberties. 
The  Kansas-Nebraska  bill— -which  repealed  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  sprung  like  a  trap,  as  it 
was,  upon  a  Congress  not  chosen  in  reference 
to  it ;  hurried  through  the  forms  of  legislation, 
under  whip  and  spur,  by  a  temporary  majority  ; 
alleging  a  falsehood  in  its  very  terms,  and  hav 
ing  the  seizure  of  a  vast  province,  secured  to 
freedom  by  thirty  years  of  plighted  faith,  as  its 
motive — was  the  fatal  signal  which,  after  as 
tounding  the  nation  by  its  audacity,  rallied  it 
to  battle. 

A  few  months  before  this  repeal  was  perpe 
trated,  the  very  abettors  of  the  transaction  had 
pronounced  it  impossible.  The  committee  of 
the  Senate  which  reported  it,  had  pronounced 
it  impossible.  Not  a  man  in  the  Union  but 
would,  at  that  time,  have  pronounced  it  equal 
ly  impossible,  had  his  opinion  been  asked  ;  yet 
it  was  repealed  by  the  simple  declaration,  which 
all  the  world  knew  to  be  untrue,  that  it  had 
been  rendered  inoperative  by  the  legislation  of 


256  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

1850  !      Marvelous  assurance,   but  still  more 
marvelous  success  ! 

We  shall  not  inquire  here  whether  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  was  originally  proper  or  not ; 
averse  as  we  are  to  compromises  in  general,  we 
are  not  sure  that  it  would  riot  have  been  better 
for  all  sides  to  have  settled  the  dispute  at  that 
time  on  a  basis  of  principle,  and  at  all  hazards ; 
but,  inasmuch  as  the  South  had  reaped  its  share 
of  the  benefit  proposed  by  the  bargain — inas 
much  as  its  continuance  involved,  to  a  consid 
erable  extent,  the  good  faith  of  the  South,  we 
are  clear  that  the  disturbance  of  it  by  the  South 
was  neither  honorable  nor  wise.  In  accepting 
the  responsibility  of  the  deed,  it  has  both  lost 
an  opportunity  and  committed  a  fault.  Had  it 
spurned  the  offer  of  the  territories,  when  it  was 
made,  it  would  have  achieved  a  moral  triumph 
far  more  valuable  to  it  than  any  other  immedi 
ate  success  can  be.  But  the  virtue  of  its  rep 
resentatives  was  not  equal  to  the  occasion — the 
spirit  of  Henry,  Wythe,  Macon,  Jefferson,  was 
not  theirs.  Or  had  it,  after  the  act  was  con 
summated  in  Congress,  withheld  its  approval, 
and  manifested  a  willingness  to  allow  the  North 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  257 

a  fair  chance  in  the  appropriation  of  land,  so 
long  consecrated  to  freedom  by  its  own  consent, 
there  would  have  been  a  color  of  equity  in  its 
proceedings,  which  wTould  have  gone  far  in 
tempering  the  horror  and  reprobation  which  the 
original  offense  provoked.  But  here  again  the 
South  proved  unworthy  of  its  opportunities. 
It  has  sustained  and  abetted  the  lawless  inva 
sion  of  Kansas,  by  the  armed  marauders  of  Mis 
souri.  It  has  sent  thither  its  agents,  or  allowed 
them  to  go — which  is  the  same  thing — in  order 
to  subjugate  the  peaceful  settlers,  and  to  im 
pose  a  peculiar  social  system  upon  them  against 
their  will.  The  Kansas  Legislature,  acting  in 
the  name  of  the  South,  is  a  usurping  body. 
The  people  of  Kansas,  overruled  by  violence  at 
the  elections,  are  not  its  constituents.  It  re 
flects  no  popular  sovereignty,  only  the  swTay  of 
the  mob  ;  and  they  who  support  its  cause  sup 
port  the  ascendancy  of  the  bowie-knife  and  the 
rifle  over  the  ballot-box  and  the  law. 

Under  this  condition  of  facts  and  events,  it 
was  very  natural  that  public  opinion  at  the 
North  should  be  stung  into  a  keen  and  vivid 
resentment.  Averse  as  it  may  have  been  to 


258  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

any  interference  with  the  internal  relations  of 
the  South  ;  willing,  as  it  has  shown  itself,  to 
accept  any  settlement  of  difficulties  which  did 
not  involve  an  actual  approval  of  the  Southern 
system  ;  hoping  that,  under  a  geographical  de 
marcation  of  the  respective  regions  of  slavery 
and  freedom,  the  causes  of  dispute  would  be 
gradually  supplanted  by  the  advancing  enter 
prise,  if  not  by  the  Christianity  and  democracy, 
of  the  nation — or  be  reduced,  at  least,  to  the 
smallest  possible  surface  of  contact  —  it  has 
yet  been  able  to  discover  in  that  repeal,  and  in 
the  conduct  by  which  it  has  been  followed  up, 
nothing  less  than  a  rooted  determination  to  ex 
tend  the  peculiar  social  usages  of  the  South 
over  the  whole  West,  in  the  face  of  contracts 
and  laws,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  freedom. 
How  then,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  could  the 
North  listen  to  the  avowral,  or  witness  the  in 
cipient  steps  in  the  execution  of  such  a  scheme, 
without  loudly  protesting  against  it,  and  re 
solving  to  resist  it  to  the  end  ? 

The  repeal  of  the  Compromise  was  the  prac 
tical  triumph  of  a  party  which  is  the  worst  in 
its  principles,  and  the  most  dangerous  in  its 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  259 

designs,  of  any  party  that  ever  arose  in  the  Re 
public.  We  refer  to  the  propagandists  of 
slavery,  whose  unquestionable  purpose  it  is  to 
rule  the  Union,  if  they  can,  and  if  they  cannot, 
to  set  up  a  southern  slave  confederacy  for 
themselves.  They  are  few  in  numbers  as  yet, 
though  great  in  influence  ;  but  they  have  of 
late  grown  rapidly  in  both,  and  will  be  pro 
digiously  strengthened  by  success  in  Kansas. 

Let  us  sketch  the  rise  and  progress  of  cer 
tain  sentiments,  briefly,  in  order  to  show  the 
bearing  of  their  schemes. 

When  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
was  formed,  slavery  existed  in  nearly  all  the 
States;  but  it  existed  as  an  acknowledged  evil, 
which,  it  was  hoped,  the  progress  of  events 
would,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  extinguish. 
With  the  exception  of  South  Carolina,  there 
was  not  a  State  in  which  some  decided  efforts 
had  not  been  made  towards  its  alleviation  and 
ultimate  removal.  It  was  this  feeling,  that  it 
was  an  evil,  and  that  it  would  soon  be  abated, 
which  excluded  all  mention  of  slavery  by  name 
from  the  Constitution,  and  which  led  to  the 
adoption  of  such  a  phraseology,  in  the  parts  refer- 


260  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ring  to  the  subject,  that  they  do  not  necessarily 
imply  its  existence.  The  Constitution  was 
made  for  all  time,  while  the  makers  of  it  sup 
posed  slavery  to  be  but  a  transient  fact,  and 
the  terms  of  it  consequently  were  adapted  to 
the  larger  purpose,  and  not  to  the  temporary 
exigency.  A  jurist  from  the  interior  of  China, 
who  knew  nothing  of  the  actual  condition  of 
our  country,  or  Justinian,  could  he  arise  from 
the  dead,  would  never  learn,  from  the  mere 
reading  of  that  instrument,  of  the  existence  of 
slavery.  He  would  read  of  "  persons  held  to 
service,"  and  of  certain  "  other  persons,"  who 
were  to  be  counted  only  as  three-fifths  in  the 
distribution  of  representative  population ;  but 
he  would  never  imagine  them,  unless  expressly 
told,  a  species  of  property.  The  general  senti 
ment  was  averse  to  slavery,  and  the  men  of 
the  Revolution  were  unwilling  to  recognize  it, 
except  in  an  indirect  and  roundabout  way,  and 
then  only,  as  they  expected,  for  a  limitqd 
period. 

For  many  years  subsequent  to  the  Ee volu 
tion,  a  similar  feeling  prevailed  throughout  the 
South  as  well  as  at  the  North.  The  most  in- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  261 

tense  expressions  of  disapproval  that  have  ever 
been  uttered  against  the  system,  may  be  quoted 
from  the  writings  of  those  who  were  born  and 
brought  up  under  it :  and  whenever  it  was 
defended,  it  was  defended  on  the  ground,  not 
that  it  was  right,  or  even  desirable,  but  that  it 
was  inevitable.  "  It  is  fastened  upon  us,"  said 
the  South,  "and  we  must  do  the  best  with  it 
that  we  can.  We  are  like  men  in  a  morass, 
who  cannot  spring  at  once  to  the  firm  land, 
but  who  must  work  their  way  thither,  gradually, 
as  they  are  able.  We  trust  that  Providence 
has  some  good  end  in  thus  afflicting  us — what 
it  is  we  do  not  see — we  discover  certain  inci 
dental  goods  in  our  strange  relations  ;  but  we 
must  look  to  God  to  justify  his  own  dealings 
to  us  in  this  wretched  business."  This  was  the 
pervading  tone ;  few  regarded  slavery  as  any 
thing  less  than  a  curse,  and  none  held  it  to  be  a 
permanent  condition.  As  for  the  domestic 
trade  in  slaves,  it  was  generally  execrated. 
John  Randolph,  as  late  as  1S16,  denounced  it, 
on  the  floor  of  Congress,  as  "heinous  and 
abominable,"  "  inhuman  and  illegal,"  and  Gov. 
Williams,  of  South  Carolina,  spoke  of  it  in  one 


262  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

of  his  messages  as  "  a  remorseless  and  merciless 
traffic,"  the  result  of  "  insatiable  avarice,"  con 
demned  "  by  enlightened  humanity,  wise  policy, 
and  the  prayers  of  the  just." 

But  the  rapid  extension  given  to  the  cotton 
trade,  by  the  contrivance  of  the  gin,  and  by  the 
manufacturing  industry  of  Great  Britain,  pro 
duced  a  vast  change  in  the  opinions  of  the 
country.  As  the  slave  system  spread,  and  the 
hopes  of  its  ultimate  extinction  diminished,  it 
was  found  necessary  by  the  slaveholders,  in 
order  to  justify  to  their  own  consciences  their 
adherence  to  it,  and  to  shelter  their  conduct 
from  the  indignant  censure  of  the  world,  to  in 
vent  some  plea  which  should  be  plausible  at 
least,  if  not  well-founded.  In  pursuance  of  this 
need,  they  resorted  to  the  Bible  to  show  that 
slavery  was  divinely  allowed,  and  could  not 
be,  therefore,  in  itself,  wrong.  They  ransacked 
physiological  science,  to  establish  the  inferiority 
of  the  black  race,  and  the  consequent  duty  of 
protecting  it,  and  educating  it  to  labor.  They 
began  to  interpret  the  designs  of  Heaven,  con 
tending  that  slavery  was  to  be  made  an  instru 
ment  in  raising  the  enslaved  Africans  to  a  know- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  263 

ledge  of  the  industrial  arts  and  Christianity, 
and  in  the  subsequent  civilization,  through 
them,  of  the  vast  continent  from  which  they 
were  originally  taken. 

All  this  reasoning,  however,  implied  no  more 
than  a  temporary  state  of  slavery,  making  it 
probationary  or  propaedeutic,  and  not  justifying 
it  as  a  final  or  permanent  condition.  The 
motives  assigned  in  apology  for  it,  looked  to 
the  future  redemption  of  the  slave,  to  his  im 
provement  in  the  methods  of  civilized  life,  and 
of  course  to  his  restoration  to  a  condition  in 
which  those  methods  would  avail  himself  and 
his  race. 

A  sterner  logic  was  required  to  meet  the 
difficulties  of  the  problem,  which  was  nothing 
less  than  the  reconciliation  of  a  selfish  interest 
to  universal  conscience — at  all  times  a  most 
embarrassing  affair.  If  slavery  were  right  be 
cause  only  of  its  probable  and  ultimate  benefits 
to  the  slave  caste,  the  inference  could  not  be 
avoided  that  the  time  must  come  when  that 
caste,  or  the  superior  portions  of  it,  at  least, 
might  be  emancipated.  The  opponents  of  the 
slaveholders  might  justly  taunt  them,  on  their 


264  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

own  premises,  for  continuing  the  system  be- 
yond  the  period  requisite  for  the  fulfillment  of 
its  alleged  purposes.  They  might  reasonably 
demand  that  some  definite  term  be  put  to  the 
time  of  this  educationary  discipline  ;  that  the 
system,  in  fact,  should  be  resolved  into  a  spe 
cies  of  apprenticeship;  and  that  the  lot  of  its 
enforced  beneficiaries  should  be  illuminated  by 
some  hope  or  prospect,  however  distant,  of 
final  release.  For  of  what  use  to  the  slave,  or 
to  his  race,  would  be  an  education  protracted 
to  the  hour  of  his  death?  Education  is  a  means 
to  some  end,  and  where  the  end  is  withheld,  the 
means  is  worthless.  How  were  negroes,  taught 
the  social  arts  here,  to  benefit  their  fellows  in 
Africa,  if  they  were  to  be  held  here  in  perpetual 
bondage  ?  Why  teach  them  knowledge,  which, 
in  raising  them  individually  above  their  original 
savageness,  could  only  render  them  more  keenly 
sensible  that  their  out-look  embraced  no 
future  ? 

It  was  hard  for  the  slaveholders  to  reply, 
and  so  the  bolder  among  them  shifted  their 
grounds.  They  began  to  aver  that  slavery 
was  a  good  in  itself — that  it  was  the  natu- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  265 

ral  relation  of  the  two  races — that  negroes 
could  never  be  anything  more,  by  the  fiat 
of  God,  than  the  servants  of  the  white  man ; 
and  that  a  society,  constructed  upon  this  ar 
rangement,  in  which  the  inferior  should  do  all 
the  work,  and  the  superior  exercise  the  pro 
tection  and  guidance  (beside  enjoying  the  best 
fruits),  was  the  truest  and  happiest  society  that 
could  be  conceived.  It  was  a  heaven-ordained 
socialism — thoroughly  articulated  and  organ 
ized,  effective  and  economical  as  an  industrial 
machine — benevolent  as  a  provision  for  the 
poorer  classes,  so  woefully  overlooked  in  other 
societies,  ample  in  its  furniture  of  motives  and 
means  for  the  ripest  culture  in  the  higher 
classes,  and  rendering  the  interchanges  of  life 
between  different  ranks,  whose  interests  are 
radically  united,  a  perpetual  reciprocation  of 
gratitude,  affection,  and  care. 

With  this  change  in  opinion,  from  despairing 
lament  or  feeble  apology  to  positive  vindication, 
came  a  corresponding  change  in  practice,  from 
defense  to  aggression.  While  the  greater  part 
of  the  slaveholders  accepted  the  glorifying  view 
of  their  system  merely  as  a  politic  reaction 


266  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

against  the  bitter  reproaches  of  the  civilized 
world,  or  as  a  plesant  couleur  de  rose  dream-land, 
into  which  imagination  might  escape  from  the 
too  painful  reality,  there  were  others,  more 
daring  spirits,  with  whom  argument  was  ac 
tion,  and  of  whom  it  might  be  said — 

" Straightforward  goes 

The  lightning's  path,  and  straight  the  fearful  path 
Of  the  cannon-ball." 

Without  caring  a  whit  for  the  right  or  wrong, 
the  good  or  evil  of  slavery,  or  of  anything  else, 
and  animated  mainly  by  an  insatiable  thirst  for 
power  and  gain,  they  found  it  exceedingly 
convenient  to  adopt  the  philanthropic  theory. 
They  eagerly  embraced  the  premises,  and  more 
eagerly  shot  to  the  conclusion.  Slavery  is  a 
good  thing,  a  desirable  thing,  a  benefaction  and 
heaven's  blessing  to  all  concerned,  and  ergo, 
ought  not  to  be  restricted,  but  diffused  !  There 
was  the  whole  question !  Why  limit  so  excel 
lent  a  social  institution  to  the  few  States  that 
are  now  basking  in  its  genial  beams?  Why 
not  spread  the  benefits  of  it  over  the  North  ? 
Why  be  so  cruel  as  to  withhold  it  from  the 
poor  benighted  Territories,  or  from  languish- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  267 

ing  Mexico,  or  from  the  wilderness  shores  of 
the  Amazon  ?  Or  why  shut  off  its  natural  sup 
plies  from  the  teeming  founts  of  Congo  and 
the  Gold  Coast  ? 

They  were  consecutive  reasoners,  you  see, 
these  fellows,  and  practical  men,  besides ;  and 
accordingly,  they  set  to  work  to  remodel  both 
the  principles  and  practices  of  the  South.  Ex 
ploding  the  old  democratic  creed,  that  man  had 
inherent  and  inviolable  rights,  which  had  been 
the  inspiring  faith  of  the  glorious  days  of  the 
Revolution,  and  trampling  down  the  once  cher 
ished  conviction  of  the  sovereign  supremacy 
of  the  States,  within  their  own  jurisdiction, 
they  proclaimed  that  only  a  particular  race  of 
men  had  rights,  that  the  States  were  nothing 
more  than  departments,  that  slavery  was  the 
one  supreme  and  universal  interest  and  that  it 
might  go  everywhere  and  determine  every 
question.  Brave  propagandists !  It  was  to 
you  we  owed  the  breaking  down  of  all  old  and 
sacred  distinctions,  to  you  we  owed  our  wars 
for  the  acquisition  of  new  land — to  you  the 
spirit  of  encroachment  and  aggrandizement 
which  is  abroad — to  you  the  filibustering  ex- 


268  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

peditions  which  disgrace  our  name — to  you  the 
fugitive  slave  law,  which  would  convert  free 
men  into  bloodhounds — to  you  the  incessant 
agitation  of  slavery,  and  an  insolence  which 
hangs  the  fate  of  the  Union  on  a  constant  sub 
servience  to  its  behests  !  and  now,  as  the  latest 
step  in  this  career  of  conquest,  as  the  very 
coup  de  grace  to  our  national  freedom  and  the 
independence  of  the  States,  comes  this  erasure 
of  an  ancient  landmark,  which  had  stood  for 
thirty  years,  like  a  long  line  of  coast,  against 
which  the  black  billows  dashed  themselves 
only  to  be  broken  !  Grant  this  triumph  and 
where  will  you  stop  ?  On  what  remote  bound 
ary  of  our  possible  empire,  in  what  era  of  un 
known  time  will  your  god  Terminus  erect  his 
altar'?  Whither  shall  we  fly  to  escape  your 
frowns,  where  look  for  a  rescue  from  your  ab 
horrent  domination  ? 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  this 
small  but  desperate  and  determined  knot  of 
propagandists  would  never  have  achieved  the 
influence  they  have,  if  the  political  parties  of 
the  country  had  maintained  their  primitive  rec 
titude  and  honor.  Had  they  continued  to  fight 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  269 

as  Washington  and  Franklin  fought,  as  Jeffer 
son  and  Adams  and  Madison  fought,  for  princi 
ples  and  not  small  expediencies,  there  is  no 
local  faction  that  could  have  made  head  against 
them  for  any  length  of  time.  But  with  suc 
cess  conies  relaxation  ;  with  victory,  indulgence ; 
with  prosperity  and  power,  corruption.  Our 
parties,  once  having  tasted  the  luscious  spoils 
of  office,  made  them  the  end  of  their  life.  They 
lost  the  stringency  and  sternness  of  conviction, 
the  nobleness  and  purity  of  purpose,  in  which 
they  began.  They  were  debauched ;  they  fell 
into  the  hands  of  men  of  small  ambitions  and 
cold  hearts ;  their  creeds  became  the  merest 
hodge-podge  of  contradictory  maxims,  and  their 
conduct  a  series  of  contemptible  shifts,  and 
doublings,  and  prostitutions. 

A  late  foreign  writer,  observing  from  an  im 
partial  stand-point  the  aspect  of  our  affairs, 
says  that  "  Few  things  have  more  surprised  the 
world  than  the  deterioration  of  the  political 
men  of  America.  When  the  United  States 
were  a  mere  aggregate  of  scantily-peopled  colo 
nies,  when  their  principal  citizens  were  plant 
ers,  shop-keepers,  and  traders,  trained  up  in 


270  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  narrowness,  and  prejudices,  and  petty  em 
ployments  of  provincial  life,  they  produced 
statesmen  and  negotiators,  and  administrators 
and  legislators  whose  names  will  be  forever 
illustrious  in  history.  Now  that  they  form  a 
great  empire,  that  they  possess  a  large  class 
of  men  born  in  opulence,  to  whom  all  the 
schools  and  universities  of  each  hemisphere  are 
open,  who  have  leisure  to  pursue  the  studies 
and  to  acquire  the  habits  of  political  life,  few 
of  their  public  men  would  pass  in  Europe  for 
tolerable  second-rates."  What  other  conclu 
sion  could  he  draw,  when  the  chair  of  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson  has  come  to  be  occupied 
by  a  Tyler  and  a  Pierce,  and  the  diplomacy  of 
a  Franklin  and  an  Adams  is  represented  by  that 
of  a  Soule  and  a  Borland  ?  Yet  the  decay  of 
leaders  would  be  nothing,  were  there  no  evi 
dences  of  a  similar  degeneracy  in  the  spirit  of 
society,  which  unfortunately  happens  to  be  the 
case.  Our  civil  life  exhibits  an  almost  univer 
sal  demoralization  ;  there  is  scarcely  a  party 
among  us  which  holds  to  any  consistent  theory 
of  government  or  law,  or  which  can  enunciate 
two  principles  that  are  not  utterly  incompati- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  271 

ble — while  political  presses,  public  documents, 
speeches  in  Congress,  and  even  the  discourses 
of  the  pulpit,  are  filled  with  arguments,  appeals, 
and  denunciations,  which  show  an  utter  aban 
donment  of  the  foundation-principle  of  our 
nation.  .  A  gross  materialism,  the  success  of 
trade,  the  progress  of  gain,  an  external  expe 
diency,  is  preferred  to  lofty  ideal  aspirations  and 
spiritual  truth.  The  grand  and  beautiful  theory 
which  lies  at  the  centre  of  our  institutions,  their 
noble  humanitarianism,  their  just  and  magnani 
mous  recognition  of  the  worth  of  every  human 
being,  their  utter  disdain  of  the  spirit  of  caste, 
of  exclusion,  of  selfish  aggrandizement — no 
longer  touch  our  hearts,  and  kindle  them  into 
a  fine  enthusiasm.  Great  deeds  are  not  done 
among  us.  The  atmosphere  around  us  is  cold, 
and  ungenial.  We  speculate  how  to  get  rich  ; 
we  build  railroads  and  ships,  to  increase  our 
stores;  we  spy  out  the  neighboring  lands  which 
promise  us  luxurious  harvests  hereafter ;  we  re 
turn  the  panting  fugitive  to  his  life-long  doom  ; 
but  the  heroic  virtues,  the  chivalric  sentiments, 
the  sweet,  and  tender,  and  self-forgetful  im 
pulses,  which  constitute  the  true  and  only  glo- 


272  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ries  of  manhood,  we  lay  aside,  forgetting  them, 
even  in  our  prayers.  "Oh!  reverence,"  says 
the  poet,  "the  dreams  of  thy  youth!"  but  the 
fair  dreams  of  our  youth  we  despise.  The  dream 
that  this  young  land,  fresh  from  the  hands  of 
its  Creator,  unpolluted  by  the  stains  of  time, 
should  be  the  home  of  freedom  and  a  race  of 
men  so  manly  that  they  \vould  lift  the  earth  by 
the  whole  breadth  of  its  orbit  nearer  heaven, 
that  it  should  be  a  light  to  the  struggling  na 
tions,  holding  on  high,  forever,  the  standard  of 
justice  and  humanity,  and  supplanting  the 
despotism  under  which  mankind  had  withered, 
by  a  rich,  and  noble,  and  free  republican  civili 
zation,  has  passed  away  from  the  most  of  us  as 
nothing  but  a  dream.  We  yield  ourselves,  in 
stead,  to  calculation,  money-making,  and  moral 
indifference.  The  prophet  of  the  Lord  might 
again  cry  in  our  streets,  "  How  is  the  gold  be 
come  dim,  how  is  the  most  fine  gold  changed  !" 
It  is  a  dark  view  of  things  we  have  taken  ; 
not  darker  than  circumstances  warrant,  and 
yet  not  altogether  hopeless.  Behind  the  foul 
and  earth-born  mists  overspreading  the  lower 
skies,  glimpses  are  to  be  had  of  a  fairer  heaven. 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  273 

Behind  the  mean  and  sordid  life  of  politics, 
shutting  out  the  sunshine  for  a  time,  there  is  a 
great,  true  life,  which  may  yet  redeem  this 
people.  At  the  South  there  are  many  noble, 
Christian  souls,  who  have  not  been  withered 
by  the.  blight  of  slavery,  and  to  whose  generous 
impulses  the  creed  of  the  vulgar  propagandists 
is  as  repugnant  as  the  creed  of  the  pirate.  They 
have  thought  too  long  and  earnestly  of  the  evil 
they  suffer,  to  disguise  its  character,  and  they 
are  too  kind  and  just  in  sentiment,  to  wish  to 
impose  it  on  others.  In  their  prayers  and 
struggles  against  it,  lies  the  hope  of  a  better 
issue  to  the  awful  question  than  is  contained  in 
the  violent  solution  of  the  more  active  men  by 
whom  they  are,  for  the  present,  silenced  and 
overborne.  It  is  to  their  wisdom  and  piety 
that  we  look  for  a  brighter  future.  Nor  at  the 
North  are  we  wholly  given  up  to  the  idolatry 
of  "  Timour-Mammon."  Scattered  over  the 
broad  inland  are  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
cheerful  homes,  which  nurture  a  race  to  whom 
the  heavenly  law,  and  not  the  earthly  greed,  is 
the  rule  of  duty.  They  retain  the  simple  hon 
esty,  the  masculine  vigor,  the  love  of  liberty 
12* 


274  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

and  of  God,  which  came  to  them  from  the  stern 
old  republican  stock  of  England,  from  those 
who  fought  with  Cromwell,  and  read  John  Mil 
ton.  Indeed,  in  no  nation  of  the  world  do  we 
believe  that  more  intelligent,  upright,  self-sac 
rificing  and  energetic  men  and  women  are  to 
be  found  than  in  this — where  the  best  culture 
of  Europe  is  so  widely  diffused,  where  religion 
is  so  free  and  so  active,  and  where  the  sweet 
influences  of  woman  are  so  heartily  accepted. 
But  the  misery  is,  that  these  virtuous  and  re 
deeming  classes  have  been  elbowed  by  the  poli 
ticians,  and  their  rude  herd,  into  obscurity. 
Shrinking  from  the  clamor,  and  meanness,  and 
ribaldry  of  political  exertion,  they  have  retired 
with  disgust  into  their  cottages  and  fields,  into 
their  stores  and  workshops,  into  their  parlors 
and  libraries,  and  they  have  thus  left  the  arena 
free  for  the  gladiators  and  the  wild  beasts,  who, 
having  mauled  and  torn  each  other,  turn  at  last 
to  rend  the  innocent  citizen,  and  to  desolate  the 
peaceful  home. 

We  conceive  that  in  pointing  out  the  two 
evils  to  which  we  have  referred,  namely,  the 
aggressions  of  slavery  and  the  corruption  of 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  275 

parties,  we  have  struck  upon  the  very  mother 
sins  of  our  career.  They  are  the  sources  to 
which  may  be  traced  every  error  and  iniquity 
that  we  have  fallen  into :  not  only  external  of 
fenses  against  honor  and  justice,  such  as  Texan 
forays,  and  Cuban  freebooting,  but  the  deeper 
inward  debasement — the  decay  and  meanness 
of  spirit,  which  could  submit  to  fugitive  slave 
laws,  and  other  outrages,  the  most  insulting 
ever  inflicted  upon  a  free  people ;  and  it  will 
be  impossible  to  retrieve  the  past  until  the 
mighty  stream  of  influences  which,  they  pour 
forth  is  stopped.  Unless  there  is  integrity, 
self-respect,  and  decision  enough  in  our  society 
to  arrest  these  gangrenes,  they  will  spread  un 
til  they  have  corroded  the  whole  body.  Unless 
there  is  moral  vitality  in  our  heart  sufficient  to 
assert  itself  against  the  powerful  poisons  already 
in  the  blood,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  circu 
lation  will  carry  them  soon  to  every  member, 
till  there  shall  be  no  health  nor  life  in  us. 

But  these  two  evils  are  in  reality  one — or 
are,  at  least,  reciprocally  cause  and  effect  of 
each  other,  inasmuch  as  they  have  both  the 
same  origin — the  departure  of  the  nation,  in 


276  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

feeling  and  practice,  from  the  idea  in  which  it 
was  founded.  Nations,  like  man  himself,  have 
certain  ends  or  ideals  of  existence,  which  con 
stitute  the  inmost  ground  or  essence  of  their 
being,  and  when  they  depart  from  these,  they 
either  degrade  themselves  into  some  lower 
form,  or  grow  into  monsters.  Men  who  cease 
to  be  men,  become  either  animals  or  fiends. 
Nations,  which  lose  their  constituent  principles, 
fall  into  barbarism,  or  rush  into  some  diabolic 
fury.  Their  salvation  lies  alone  in  their  ad 
herence  to  the  great  thought  which  gave  them 
their  original  organic  unity. 

Now,  the  great  thought,  the  fundamental 
idea,  the  constituent  principle  of  our  nation 
ality,  was  the  liberty  of  all  men,  secured  by 
equal  laws,  and  defended  from  invasion,  either 
on  the  part  of  the  state  or  of  individuals,  by  the 
whole  power  of  the  state.  The  peculiarity  of 
organization  by  which  this  liberty  was  made 
sure,  was  that  distribution  of  power  whereby 
every  mature  locality  was  rendered  free  and 
supreme  in  whatever  concerned  itself  solely, 
yet  cooperative  in  more  general  spheres,  so  that 
there  was  a  perfect  equilibrium  in  the  centripe- 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  277 

tal  and  centrifugal  forces  of  government,  as  in 
the  solar  system.  The  great  object  of  the  ar 
rangement  was  the  security,  the  elevation,  the 
freedom  of  the  individual,  who,  regarded  as  the 
child  of  God,  as  the  joint  heir  with  others  of 
the  earth,  as  an  immortal  spirit,  capable  of  an 
infinite  growth  in  love,  and  truth,  and  beauty, 
was  too  sacred  riot  to  be  hedged  round  by 
every  defense,  and  helped  forward  by  every 
kind  nurture  and  care.  He  was  the  Prince  of 
the  Great  King,  for  whom  all  the  granaries 
were  to  be  filled,  and  all  the  treasures  dis 
played,  and  all  the  bells  to  ring  out  a  joyous 
wrelcome. 

We  must  return  to  our  fundamental  princi 
ples,  to  our  primitive  spirit,  to  the  noble  and 
manly  moral  tone,  which  made  us  giants  in  our 
youth,  if  we  would  not  dwindle  into  dwarfs. 
No  single  measure  of  improvement,  nor  series 
of  measures,  can  help  us,  if  we  do  not  recover, 
along  with  them,  the  old  inward  health  and 
soundness.  A  restoration  of  the  Missouri  Pro 
hibition,  for  instance,  at  which  so  many  aim, 
though  important  as  a  sign  of  repentance,  and  as 
a  restitution  for  wrong  done,  would  be,  in  itself, 


278  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

but  a  first  step  towards  the  infinitely  greater  end, 
the  regeneration  of  the  mind  of  the  people  on 
the  subject  of  slavery.  There  will  be  no  peace, 
nor  purity,  nor  noble  vigor,  until,  as  a  federa 
tion,  we  shall  have  discharged  ourselves  of  all 
responsibility  for  a  system  vitally  at  war  with 
its  objects.  The  separate  states  have  a  larger 
and  more  difficult  task,  and  they  must  stand  or 
fall  by  their  fidelity  to  its  duties ;  they  must 
struggle  with  their  own  burdens ;  we  cannot 
help  or  relieve  them,  except  by  their  own  con 
sent  ;  but  the  confederacy  has  but  one  single, 
plain,  and  inevitable  course.  It  must  be  free ! 
how  wildly  soever  interested  factions  may  rage 
against  the  attempt  to  recover  the  ground  that 
has  been  lost,  deep  and  wide  as  are  the  delu 
sions  which  are  to  be  scattered,  painful  as  may 
be  the  process  of  healing,  even  to  the  dividing 
asunder  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  the  Repubic 
must  be  free !  The  dearest  memories  of  the 
past,  the  saddening  aspects  of  the  present,  the 
hopes  of  the  future,  alike  proclaim  it  as  the  im 
perative  law  of  duty  for  us  of  the  present  day, 
that  the  Republic  must  be  free.  As  in  days  of 
yore — 


THE    GREAT    QUESTION.  279 

"  Hills  flung  that  cry  to  hills  around, 

And  ocean-mart  replied  to  mart, 
And  streams,  whose  springs  were  yet  uufound, 
Pealed  far  away  the  startling  sound. 

Into  the  forest's  heart." 

So  let  it  be  again  flung  abroad  till  every  stain 
is  wiped  from  our  soil,  and  the  recreancy  of  our 
hearts  retrieved. 

There  is  a  time  in  the  history  of  nations,  as 
there  is  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  and  as 
there  was  in  the  life  of  Christ,  when  the  Devil 
carries  them  up  into  a  high  mountain,  and 
offers  them  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  if 
they  will  but  worship  him.  At  such  a  time 
have  we  arrived  in  our  national  career.  The 
spirit  of  evil  points  us  to  the  vast  outlying  re 
gions  of  the  globe,  and  he  promises  that  all 
these  shall  be  ours,  with  riches,  and  power,  and 
glory,  if  we  will  but  covet  them,  and  take 
them,  and  think  no  more  of  the  other  spirit, 
which  only  whispers  in  sadness  to  our  inmost 
soul,  that  goodness  is  better  than  wealth,  that 
truth  is  greater  than  power,  and  that  the  beau 
ty  of  a  humane  and  benignant  life  is  the  bright 
est  glory  of  man.  Let  us  beware  how  we 
choose ! 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH? 

THE  recent  exciting  and  protracted  contest, 
as  to  the  organization  of  Congress,  was  signifi 
cant,  in  more  respects  than  one.  It  was  a  topic 
al  symptom  of  a  general  state,  showing  a  large 
amount  of  derangement,  and  yet  a  tendency  to 
recuperation. 

We  saw  the  representatives  of  the  people 
brought  to  a  complete  deadlock  by  the  anta 
gonism  of  parties,  each  pulling  a  different  way, 
with  no  one  strong  enough  to  prevail,  and  no 
two,  seemingly,  ready  to  coalesce.  For  two 
months,  nearly,  the  usual  course  of  legislation 
was  suspended  on  the  settlement  of  a  prelim 
inary  dispute  as  to  the  Speakership. 

Yet  the  House  of  Representatives  was  never 
more  truly  representative  than  in  this  tempor 
ary  paralysis  of  its  functions ;  for  the  \vhole 
nation  is  in  pretty  nearly  the  same  predica 
ment.  Its  politics  are  decussated,  if  we  may 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       281 

use  the  expression,  not  by  well-defined  par 
ties,  but  by  numerous  opposing  factions.  Their 
conflicts,  but  for  the  seriousness  of  the  subjects 
involved,  would  exhibit  as  droll  a  spectacle  as 
Marryatt  describes  in  his  triangular  duel.  The 
Republicans,  taking  a  pistol  in  either  hand, 
fire  away  at  the  Democrats  and  the  Americans  ; 
the  Americans,  doing  the  same,  fire  at  the  Re 
publicans  and  the  Democrats  ;  while  the  Demo 
crats,  again,  discharge  their  pieces  at  the 
Americans  and  the  Republicans.  Everybody 
shoots  at  everybody  else  ;  and  everybody,  let 
him  aim  in  whatever  direction  he  will,  is  sure 
to  aim  at  an  enemy,  who  is  also  aiming  at  him, 
thus  rendering  the  exposure  equal,  and  the 
chances  of  sudden  disaster  somewhat  even. 

It  was  evident,  however,  during  the  struggle 
in  the  House,  in  spite  of  the  seeming  and  su 
perficial  diiferences  of  opinion  among  the  seve 
ral  factions,  that  there  was,  radically,  but  a 
single  issue.  Each  member  felt,  as  he  gave 
his  vote  for  this  or  that  candidate,  though  he 
was  not  always  ready  to  avow  it,  that  the 
turning-point  of  all  was,  the  question  of 
slavery.  All  the  other  questions,  which  may 


282  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

have  operated  in  forming  little  knots  of  voters, 
were  incidental,  or  aside,  like  the  small  eddies 
which  whirl  about  in  the  very  current  of  the 
principal  vortex.  Banks  and  Aiken  were  the 
leaders  of  the  hosts  between  which  the  real 
battle  was  fought,  while  they  who  shouted  for 
Fuller,  ZollikofFer,  and  what  not,  were  only 
deserters  from  the  main  ranks,  or  camp-follow 
ers  and  marplots. 

Nor  were  leaders  ever  chosen  with  more  in 
stinctive  wisdom,  considering  the  peculiarity 
of  their  relations  to  this  predominant  issue. 
Mr.  Banks  was  a  man  of  the  people,  who  had 
risen  by  his  own  efforts  from  an  humble  me 
chanical  occupation  to  a  high  political  office  ; 
while  Mr.  Aiken  was  a  slaveholder,  one  of  the 
wealthiest  of  his  class,  endowed  with  all  the 
better  qualities  of  that  class,  and  as  sincere  as 
he  was  strong  in  his  geographical  convictions. 
Mr.  Banks  represented  the  State  of  Massachu 
setts — itself  the  best  example  of  a  free  condi 
tion  of  society  to  be  found  on  the  face  of  the 
earth ;  while  Mr.  Aiken  represented  South 
Carolina — long  distinguished  as  the  ablest  ex 
ponent  of  both  the  opinions  and  the  influences 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       283 

of  the  slave-civilization.  In  these  champions, 
the  two  social  systems  of  the  North  and  South 
were  pitted  against  each  other,  and,  for  the 
first  time  so  openly  and  directly,  in  the  history 
of  our  national  existence. 

In  the  same  way,  the  nation,  in  the  midst  of 
the  parties  and  agitations  by  which  it  is  dis 
tracted,  recognizes  the  fundamental  and  vital 
question  to  be  that  of  slavery.  Wink  it  out 
of  sight  as  we  may,  or  complicate  it  as  we 
may,  it  cannot  be  disguised,  that  slavery  is  the 
single  real  element  of  party  divisions.  Openly 
or  secretly,  it  controls  the  action  of  all  par 
ties.  They  come  together,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Americans,  for  other  ostensible  purposes  ; 
but  before  they  separate,  are  fiercely  at  logger 
heads  about  this  matter.  Every  ancient  party 
organization  has  been  sundered  by  it,  and  their 
members,  in  forming  new  party  ties,  are  almost 
exclusively  controlled  by  it.  The  first  condi 
tion  they  exact,  before  joining  anybody  is,  that 
it  should  think  thus  and  so  of  the  slavery 
question. 

But  what  is  the  slavery  question  ?  What  is 
the  real  issue  at  the  bottom  of  the  excitement 


284  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

which  gathers  about  this  word  slavery,  as  a 
nucleus  ?  Let  us  answer,  in  the  outset,  that 
it  is  not  a  question  as  to  the  merits  of  slavery 
in  itself,  or  rather  in  its  adaptation  to  those 
communities  in  which  it  already  exists.  With 
the  exception  of  a  certain  class  of  philanthro 
pists,  who  conceive  it  their  duty  to  wage  war 
against  every  form  of  injustice  everywhere,  we 
know  of  no  class  in  this  country  who  wish  to 
interfere  with  those  communities.  At  least, 
there  is  no  distinct  or  formidable  political 
party  professing  such  an  object.  Agreat  many 
individuals  at  the  North,  not  indifferent  to  the 
cause  of  humanity,  claim  the  right  to  consider 
and  criticize  Southern  society,  just  as  they  do 
the  various  societies  of  Europe  and  Asia.  But 
the  great  body  of  the  people  have  never 
evinced  any  aggressive  disposition  beyond  that, 
and  are  willing  to  leave  the  practical  treatment 
of  slavery  in  the  states  to  those  who  know 
its  evils,  and  are  to  be  presumed  best  able  to 
devise  a  remedy.  What  concerns  them  solely 
and  exclusively  is,  the  relation  of  slavery  to 
their  own  interests  and  responsibilities.  It 
might  be  conceded  that  the  peculiar  socialism 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       285 

of  the  South  is  the  best  for  it,  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  that  human  wisdom  can  conceive; 
or,  that  it  has  the  divine  sanction — being 
equally  beneficial  to  the  white  and  black  races 
without  touching  the  marrow  of  our  public 
dispute. 

The  real  question  turns  upon  the  struggle  of 
two  incompatible  orders  of  civilization  for  the 
mastery  of  a  common  field.  It  has  fallen  to 
the  lot  of  this  country  to  make  the  attempt  to 
confederate  a  series  of  states,  separated  by  two 
distinct  social  systems ;  and,  though  the  at 
tempt  is  not  impracticable  in  itself,  nor  was  it 
impracticable  under  the  original  conditions, 
nor  is  yet  impracticable,  could  these  conditions 
be  adhered  to — the  actual  working  of  the  ex 
periment  has  developed  a  broad  and  serious 
antagonism.  The  evidences  of  a  latent  differ 
ence  have  casually  appeared,  from  the  begin 
ning;  but  they  were  adjusted  as  they  appear 
ed,  on  the  principle  of  peaceful  compromise. 
In  a  late  fatal  and  perfidious  hour,  however, 
that  principle  was  flung  to  the  winds,  and  the 
elements  of  discord  left  to  the  chance  of  a 
hand-to-hand  encounter. 


286  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

The  controversy,  between  what  may  be 
termed  our  Northern  and  Southern  civiliza 
tions,  presents  two  aspects :  first,  whether  the 
influences  of  the  one  or  the  other  shall  pre 
dominate  in  the  federal  government ;  and,  sec 
ondly,  whether  the  one  or  the  other  of  these 
influences  shall  prevail  in  the  organization  of 
new  territories.  Virtually,  these  questions 
are  one ;  for  whichever  side  succeeds  in  re 
gard  to  the  first  point,  will  be  sure  to  succeed 
in  regard  to  the  second,  and  vice  versa. 

As  to  the  first  aspect  of  it,  we  are  all  aware 
what  the  facts  of  the  case  have  been  hitherto  ; 
we  are  all  aware,  that  for  many  years  the  in 
terests  of  slavery  have  carried  the  day,  in 
nearly  every  department  of  the  national  gov 
ernment.  The  executive  has  always  inclined 
to  that  side,  and  so  has  the  judiciary,  and, 
with  occasional  exceptions,  both  branches  of 
the  legislature.  It  came  to  such  a  pass,  in 
deed,  at  last,  that  no  man,  whatever  his  capaci 
ties  or  claims,  who  was  in  the  least  adverse  to 
that  interest,  was  allowed  to  hold  the  lowest 
office  of  profit  or  honor  under  the  general  gov 
ernment,  and  much  less  to  achieve  any  of  its 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       287 

higher  places.  It  is  true,  at  this  hour,  that 
the  most  illustrious  poet  of  his  country,  that 
its  most  illustrious  historian,  that  its  most 
illustrious  philosopher,  that  its  most  illustri 
ous  novelist  (were  she  a  man)  could  not  be 
made  a  gate-keeper  of  the  public  grounds  at 
Washington,  if  he  desired  to  be  ;  and  all  for 
the  simple  reason,  that  having  formed  a  differ 
ent  theory  of  social  life  from  the  one  which 
obtains  at  the  South,  he  has  been  honest 
enough  to  express  it.  Even  the  most  eminent 
statesmen  of  former  days — our  Jeffersons,  our 
Franklins,  our  Jays,  and  our  Adamses — could 
they  arise  from  their  graves,  and  write  what 
they  once  wrote,  would  be  excluded  forever 
from  political  employment.  The  men  of  the 
North,  who  are  born  to  freedom,  who  are  cra 
dled  to  rest  by  the  songs  of  its  surges  as  they 
roll  in  from  the  lakes  and  oceans,  who  inhale 
it  with  every  breath  blown  from  their  eternal 
hills,  and  who,  should  they  fail  to  extol  it, 
would  be  recreant  to  the  earliest  and  deepest 
inspirations  of  their  lives,  are  begirt  by  an  in 
tolerance  more  exclusive  than  the  ostracism  of 
the  Athenian  demos,  or  the  interdicts  of  the 


288  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

mediaeval  papacy.  The  men  of  New  England 
and  New  York,  of  Ohio  and  Wisconsin,  are 
yet  called  upon  to  adopt  the  peculiar  senti 
ments  of  men  of  Georgia  and  Texas,  or  at 
least  to  hold  their  tongues  from  the  temerity 
of  criticism  or  disapproval,  on  pain  of  political 
banishment.  Let  them  but  once  whisper 
abroad  any  disparagement  of  slavery,  though 
it  were  in  the  friendliest  tone,  with  the  sin- 
cerest  convictions,  under  an  earnest  and  con 
scientious  sense  of  its  important,  bearings,  and 
straightway  they  are  marked  men. 

Now,  against  this  they  contend  and  protest ; 
it  is  a  dictation  so  arrogant,  that  to  submit  to 
it  would  be  to  deserve  it ;  and  every  impulse 
of  self-respect,  honor,  and  liberty  prompts  them 
to  avoid  that  humiliation. 

The  more  immediate  and  pressing  aspect  of 
the  great  controversy,  however,  is  that  which 
relates  to  the  future  destiny  of  the  territories. 
It  presents  this  simple  alternative — whether, 
contrasting  the  effects  of  the  free  condition  of 
society  with  those  of  the  slave,  we  ought  to 
abandon  our  virgin  soils  to  the  occupation  of 
the  one,  or  solemnly  consecrate  them  to  the 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       289 

use  of  the  other?  As  a  nation,  we  have  had  a 
broad  and  ample  experience  of  the  influences 
of  both  systems  on  the  prosperity  of  states, 
and  we  are  summoned  to  a  decision  between 
them.  In  this  view,  the  question  is  one,  we 
repeat,  not  of  races,  nor  of  abstract  theories  of 
rights,  nor  even  of  religious  convictions  (al 
though  all  these  will  influence  the  decision), 
but  of  actual  facts.  Demonstrated  before  us, 
lie  the  results  of  two  social  experiments,  and 
we  are  asked,  in  the  light  of  those  demonstra 
tions,  to  determine  which  it  is  best  to  apply,  in 
the  formation  of  our  young  and  inchoate  com 
munities.  A  brood  of  such  communities  is 
growing  up  under  our  fostering  wings;  our 
duty  is,  to  launch  them  in  the  world,  as  a  good 
parent  would  send  forth  his  sons,  furnished 
with  the  best  appliances  for  a  healthful,  sober, 
manly,  and  generous  career;  and  the  choice 
lies  in  this — whether  that  furniture  shall  come 
from  the  pens  and  plantations  of  slavery,  or 
from  the  factories  and  free-schools  of  freedom. 

There  could  be  no  better  illustration  of  the 
proper  solution  of  this  problem,  than  the  expe 
riences  of  the   two  states,  which  lately  ap- 
13 


290  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

peared,  through  their  representatives,  in  the 
congressional  arena,  as  the  standard-bearers  of 
either  party.  Massachusetts  and  South  Caro 
lina  are  both  old,  and  both  sea-board  states, 
which  took  a  conspicuous  part  in  our  revolu 
tionary  war ;  which  were  present  at  the  forma 
tion  of  the  Constitution ;  which  have  since 
grown,  side  by  side,  under  their  characteristic 
systems ;  which  cling,  with  great  tenacity,  to 
the  principles  of  these,  and  which  are  remarka 
ble  for  the  vigor  with  which  they  represent 
their  effects.  At  the  outset,  South  Carolina 
was  about  four  times  as  large  Massachusetts, 
territorially,  and  is  still ;  but  this  advantage  is 
partly  compensated  by  the  fact,  that  Massa 
chusetts  began  with  about  one-third  more  to 
tal  population.  Massachusetts,  however,  was 
democratically  organized  into  a  system  of  sepa 
rate,  and  almost  independent  townships,  each 
a  centre  of  government  in  itself,  while  South 
Carolina,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  was 
centrally  organized  into  parishes,  having  little 
or  no  local  authority,  and,  for  the  most  part, 
dependent  on  the  principal,  or  state  govern 
ment.  The  people  of  Massachusetts  have  re- 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       291 

tained  that  organization,  and  with  it,  the  most 
entire  freedom  of  every  inhabitant ;  while  the 
people  of  South  Carolina  have  also,  with  slight 
modifications,  retained  their  system,  and  with 
it,  the  servitude  of  nearly  the  whole  laboring 
class.  Now,  what  have  been  the  effects,  on 
the  prosperity  of  each,  of  these  two  contrasted 
constitutions? 

The  elements  of  national  greatness,  in  their 
three-fold  material,  intellectual  and  moral  forms, 
are  universally  summed  up  under  the  heads  of 
population,  productive  industry,  the  diffusion 
of  wealth,  internal  improvement,  popular  edu 
cation,  and  social  order.  But  who,  that  has 
ever  traveled  over  the  two  states  we  are  con 
sidering,  or  taken  the  pains  to  compare  their 
statistics,  as  given  in  the  usual  authorities,  can 
have  failed  to  remark  their  broad  and  striking 
differences,  in  all  these  respects?  Supposing 
their  social  systems  equally  well  adapted  to 
their  respective  localities  and  the  genius  of 
their  people,  how  notable  the  disparity  in  the 
practical  results ! 

On  the  one  part,  we  behold  a  considerable 
progress ;  but  on  that  of  the  other,  a  prodigious 


292  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

one.  On  the  one  side,  we  behold  a  large  and 
fertile  soil,  under  a  delicious  climate,  thinly 
peopled  and  poorly  cultivated ;  and,  on  the 
other,  a  barren  soil,  under  inclement  skies, 
teeming  with  towns  and  cities,  and  cultivated 
to  the  extreme.  On  the  one  side,  the  industry, 
though  productive,  is,  in  many  respects,  care 
less,  thriftless,  improvident,  and  confined  to  a 
few  branches  which  increase  slowly;  while,  on 
the  other,  the  productiveness  of  the  industry 
exceeds  that  of  any  part  of  the  globe,  except 
ing  a  few  sugar  and  coffee  estates  of  the  torrid 
zone,  and  is  richly  varied,  and  advancing.  On 
the  one  side  is  a  slender  commerce ;  and,  on 
the  other,  a  commerce  which  sweeps  the  seas. 
On  the  one  side  are  bad  roads,  and  few  of 
them ;  while,  on  the  other,  is  a  chevaux  dc 
frise  of  railroads.  On  the  one  side  is  a  puny 
and  unprolific  intellectual  activity ;  and,  on  the 
other,  an  intellectual  activity  which  leaves  no 
child  untaught,  and  scarcely  a  man  unlettered. 
On  the  one  side  is  a  society  irrevocably  divided 
into  castes,  where  a  debased  and  inferior  race 
grows  in  numbers  and  strength,  to  the  increas 
ing  embarrassment  of  the  superior  race,  and 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH? 


293 


amidst  the  derision  of  the  civilized  world ; 
while,  on  the  other,  is  a  homogeneous  society, 
where  every  man  enjoys  the  means  of  the  high 
est  culture  and  the  securest  happiness,  and  the 
future  expands  and  brightens  with  new  pros 
pects  of  social  achievement.*  Every  year  is 

*  The  following  table  is  compiled  from  the  last  Census, 
with  the  exception  of  the  "  Agricultural  Products,"  which 
is  Mr.  Tucker's  estimate  for  1840  : 


MASSACHU'S. 

SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

Population,          .... 
Real  and  personal  estate, 
Acres  improved, 
Acres  unimproved,         .    ;  ..    .f 
Cash  value  of  farms,           .  ;  \  $' 
Agricultural  products,    . 
Manufacture  and  mining, 

994,514 

$573,342,286 
2,133,436 
1.222,576 
$109,076.347 
$16,100,000 
$151,137,145 
$41,367,956 

668.507 
$288,267,694 
4,072,651 
12,145,049 
$82,431,684 
$21,550.000 
$7,063^513 
$1.808,517 

Exports,      

$16.895,304 
32,715,327 

$15,400,408 
2.081,312 

Rail-road  costs.  .... 
Value  produced  to  each  person, 
Free-schools  
Private  schools,          .  " 
Scholars  in  all, 
Papers  and  periodicals, 
Illiterate  white  natives,  . 
Libraries,    
Churches,         .... 
Church  property, 

$55,602.687 
$106 
3,679 
403 
190,924 
64,820,564 
1.861 
684  015 
1,477 
$10,206,184 

$11,287,093 
$50 
724 
202 
26,025 
7,145,930  copies 
16,460 
107,472  vols. 
1,182 
$2,172,246 

As  to  the  crime  and  pauperism  of  the  two  states,  no  ma 
terials  exist  for  an  accurate  comparison ;  but  if  we  may 
trust  the  statement  of  Governor  Hammond,  in  his  address  to 
the  South  Carolina  Institute,  there  are  no  less  than  50,000 
whites  (one-sixth  of  the  white  population),  "whose  industry 
is  not  adequate  to  their  support.  They  obtain  a  precarious 
subsistence  by  hunting,  fishing,  plundering  fields  and  folds, 
and  trading  with  slaves."  For  further  facts  in  regard  to 


294  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

plunging  South  Carolina  into  deeper  troubles 
and  dangers,  from  which  her  most  sagacious 
and  even  hopeful  minds  see  no  escape  but  civil 
war ;  while  every  year  is  lifting  Massachusetts 
toward  a  more  secure  and  benignant  eminence 
of  Christian  civilization. 

Our  argument  does  not  mean  to  assert  that 
South  Carolina  ought  to  adopt  the  institutions 
of  Massachusetts,  because  we  have  no  occasion 
to  go  into  such  an  inquiry  here ;  but  what  it 
does  assert  is  this,  that  if  a  high  degree  of  pros 
perity  be  desirable  to  a  nation,  if  a  thriving 
population,  if  universal  industry,  if  the  rapid 
increase  and  equitable  diffusion  of  wealth,  if 
general  improvement,  if  education  and  religion, 
in  short,  if  a  harmonious  growth  and  widening 
prospects  for  the  future,  be  the  tests  of  that 
prosperity,  then  the  institutions  of  Massachu 
setts  are  vastly  better  in  themselves,  and  in 
respect  to  all  communities  in  which  they  are 
practicable,  than  the  institutions  of  South  Caro 
lina.  We  say,  that  the  experience  of  these 

the  physical  and  moral  abasement  of  South  Carolina,  see 
Mr.  Olmsted's  interesting  and  masterly  book,  called  "  The 
Seaboard  Slave  States."  Xew  York,  1856. 


NORTHERN   OR   SOUTHERN,    WHICH?  295 

states  has  shown,  incontestably,  the  superiority 
of  the  free  condition  of  society,  and  that  we,  as 
honest  patriots  and  Christian  men,  are  bound, 
by  all  human  wisdom,  and  all  divine  law,  to 
prefer  those  institutions,  where  either  may  be 
adopted,  as  in  our  new  territories.  We  are 
bound  to  secure, to  our  friends  and  descendants 
in  those  regions,  to  which,  under  our  guardian 
ship,  they  have  removed,  every  highest  guar 
anty  and  facility  of  future  well-being. 

But  the  superiority  of  free  society,  so  sig 
nally  exhibited  in  the  contrasts  of  the  two 
great  and  powerful  states  we  have  named,  is 
confirmed  by  the  experience  of  all  the  states. 
The  relative  position  of  the  free  states,  com 
pared  with  the  slave  states,  is  accurately  de 
noted  by  the  relations  of  Massachusetts  and 
South  Carolina.  Free  society  is  always  on  the 
lead  ;  and  one  of  the  established  principles  of 
political  economy  is,  that  it  must  be  so — that 
it  cannot  be  otherwise ;  that  God  would  be 
forgetful  of  the  laws  he  has  implanted  in  the 
human  constitution,  and  in  the  universe,  if  he 
did  not  render  freedom  the  most  benignant  of 
all  conditions.  Mr.  Henry  C.  Carey,  in  a  most 


29G  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

valuable  book  of  his,*  has  shown,  by  a  rigid 
induction  from  the  statistics  of  four  nations — 
India,  France,  England,  and  the  United  States 
— that  in  everything  which  involves  the  suc 
cess,  the  happiness,  and  the  moral  elevation  of 
their  people,  their  eminence  is  in  a  precise 
ratio  to  their  political  freedom.  He  proves, 
specifically,  and  beyond  a  doubt,  that,  in  re 
spect  to  the  security  of  person  and  property  ; 
in  respect  to  quantity  and  quality  of  work  ;  in 
respect  to  the  profits  of  capital,  and  the  wages 
of  labor ;  in  respect  to  the  equable  distribution 
of  wealth,  and  exemption  from  taxes  ;  in  re 
spect  to  the  soundness  and  extension  of  credit; 
in  respect  to  facility  of  intercourse,  and  habits 
of  industry;  in  respect  to  purity  of  marriage 
and  growth  of  population  ;  in  respect  to  the 
absence  of  crime,  and  even  of  disease  ;  and, 
finally,  in  respect  to  literary  and  religious  in 
struction,  the  condition  of  nations  is  measured 
by  their  freedom.  It  is  such  an  overwhelming 
demonstration,  as  no  defender  of  despotism,  in 
any  of  its  shapes,  has  ever  undertaken  to  re 
fute,  or  even  cared  to  notice.  Yet  a  similar 
*  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  3  vols. 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       297 

demonstration  is  possible,  in  regard  to  the  free 
and  slave  states  of  this  Union.  It  can  be 
shown  that  a  clear  line  of  distinction  separates 
the  two,  in  all  these  elements  of  high  civiliza 
tion.  And  how  could  it  be  otherwise?  The 
condition  of  slavery,  confining  its  laborious 
classes,  for  the  most  part,  to  simple  agricultu 
ral  labor,  does  not  stimulate,  and  scarcely 
admits  of  that  variety  and  magnificence  of  pro 
duct,  which  is  the  mark  of  high  physical  de 
velopment,  whilst  it  is  still  more  deficient  in 
the  means  of  intellectual  and  moral  progress. 
Its  superior  class  often  attains  the  most  ele 
vated  point,  both  of  character  and  culture,  but 
its  masses,  with  here  and  there  an  indi 
vidual  exception,  cannot  rise  above  the  lowest 
level. 

All  this,  however,  needs  no  protracted  dis 
cussion.  Do  not  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  men,  out  of  every  thousand,  at  the  North, 
honestly  believe,  that  a  free  society  is,  in  every 
sense,  preferable  to  a  slave  society?  Are  there 
not  thousands  upon  thousands  at  the  south, 
who  believe  the  same  thing,  who  openly  con 
fess  the  superiority  of  the  former,  and  justify 
13* 


298  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

the  continuation  of  the  latter  solely  upon  the 
ground,  that  it  was  an  unavoidable  inheritance, 
of  which  it  is  now  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  get  relieved  ? 

The  only  exceptions  that  we  know  to  this 
almost  universal  conviction,  are  the  opinions 
held  by  a  few  southern  speculators,  who,  fol 
lowing  the  lead  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  have  discov 
ered  the  most  alarming  weaknesses  in  free 
society.  They  see  in  it  a  thousand  elements 
of  evil — in  its  relations  of  labor  and  capital,  a 
future  war  between  the  rich  and  poor — in  its 
excitability,  the  seeds  of  a  desolating  fanati 
cism,  and  in  its  party  violences,  a  most  speedy 
anarchy.  Poor  fellows  !  They  seem  to  be  af 
flicted  with  a  judicial  blindness! 

No  observant  man  is,  of  course,  insensible 
to  the  many  lingering  defects  and  evils  of  our 
free  society.  If  he  have  studied  it  minutely, 
he  will  not  regard  it  as  by  any  means  perfect 
or  final:  yet,  on  the  comparison  of  it  with 
other  societies,  and  after  every  abatement,  he 
will  come  to  a  quite  positive  conclusion,  that 
it  contains  facilities  for  reaching  every  imagin 
able  social  excellence,  greater  than  any  other 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       299 

that  now  exists.  Taken  as  to  the  general  re 
sult,  he  will  see,  that  the  civilization  of  our 
free  states  is  not  only  considerably  in  advance 
of  that  of  any  other  part  of  the  globe,  but  is 
of  such  a  structure  and  spirit  that  it  will  con 
tinue,  for  many  years  yet,  to  keep  in  advance. 
What  civilization  can  be  named  its  superior? 
That  of  Turkey,  Russia,  Italy,  Austria,  Spain 
— the  simple  suggestion  is  ludicrous!  Outside 
of  England,  France,  and  the  north  of  Germany, 
which  surpass  us  in  certain  special  aspects, 
there  are  no  nations  to  be  named  on  the  same 
day  with  New  England,  the  northern  middle 
states,  and  the  settled  parts  of  the  West.  We 
do  not  mean  that  these  have  actually  achieved 
all  the  finer  results  of  European  life ;  but  that, 
apart  from  their  own  peculiar  attainments, 
they  are  in  a  condition  to  appropriate  the  high 
est  existing  social  culture.  Without  sacrificing 
their  characteristic  virtues,  they  are  rapidly 
adopting  the  best  refinements  of  others.  No 
where  else  do  literature  and  art  spread  so 
widely  among  the  people ;  and  nowhere  else  is 
domestic  life  so  readily  blending  the  genialities 
and  graces  of  intercourse  (before  impossible  to 


300  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

its   newness   arid   rawness)   with   that   purity 
which  it  always  had  and  still  retains. 

The  forms  of  our  free  society,  being  alike 
flexible  and  fixed,  preserve  the  security  of  law, 
while  they  give  ample  scope  to  the  movements 
of  progress.  That  dissolution,  especially,  which 
the  aforesaid  speculators  fondly  predict  for  it, 
in  consequence  of  its  fanaticisms  and  turbu 
lences,  is  an  event  the  most  remote  ;  for  its 
very  freedom  is  its  defense,  and  the  errors 
which  arise  in  it,  like  the  vapors  of  the  night,  are 
dissipated  in  the  morning  by  the  light  of  free 
discussion.  AVhen  the  mind  is  exempted  from 
compressive  restraints,  its  natural  activity  is 
displayed  in  novel  schemes  of  thought  as  well 
as  in  mechanical  contrivance ;  projects  of  re 
form  of  all  kinds  are  as  inseparable  from  it  as 
business  enterprise ;  and  like  a  rich  soil  which 
produces  the  best  fruits,  it  also  abounds  in 
plentiful  crops  of  weeds.  All  the  excitements 
of  it,  however,  all  its  isms  and  vagaries,  are 
scarcely  felt  as  evils.  Beyond  the  temporary 
ferment  they  occasion,  no  one  is  the  worse  for 
them,  while  these  ferments  may  be  themselves 
regarded  as  the  outlets  of  irritation  that  might 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?       301 

otherwise  be  deep  and  dangerous.  It  is  the 
forced  suppression  of  social  energies,  and  not 
the  ventilation  of  them,  which  leads  to  perni 
cious  revolts.  For  this  reason,  therefore,  we 
have  no  fear  of  the  imputed  lawlessness  of  free 
society — a  danger  to  which,  in  its  peculiar  con 
stitution,  slave-society  seems  to  us  far  more 
exposed.  Dr.  Arnold  somewhere  remarks  with 
profound  wisdom,  that  "the  age  of  chivalry, 
whose  departure  Burke  so  much  regretted,  was 
the  natural  parent  of  that  age  of  Jacobinism 
which  he  so  much  abhorred."  He  meant  that 
both  breathe  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  order,  en 
couraging  men  to  look  upon  themselves  as  in 
dependent  of  their  fellows,  and  cultivating  a 
proud  and  selfish  idolatry  of  what  belongs  to 
themselves  individually,  whether  it  be  personal 
honor  or  personal  glory,  as  in  the  one  form  of 
the  disease,  or  personal  liberty  and  equity,  as  in 
the  other.  Both  lead  to  what  Bacon  calls  bo- 
num  sultatis  to  the  neglect  of  the  good  of  the 
general  body.  True  as  this  is  of  a  genuine 
chivalry,  it  is  still  more  true  of  that  spurious 
sort  which  springs  out  of  slavery,  and  which 
breeds  a  haughty,  insolent,  and  irritable  self- 


302  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

conceit — intractable  to  law,  and  disdaining  so 
cial  subordination.  It  is  in  southern  society 
that  personal  and  mobocratic  violence  is  rifest 
— it  is  there  that  schemes  of  filibusterism  are 
principally  engendered  —  and  there  that  the 
threat  of  taking  up  arms  against  the  Union  is  a 
favorite  method  of  discussion. 

In  the  elements  of  stability  as  well  as  of 
prosperity,  then,  the  social  organization  of  the 
North  enjoys  an  unquestionable  superiority 
over  that  of  the  South  ;  and  we  do  not  see 
how  any  rational  or  humane  man  can  hesitate 
as  to  which  is  the  most  desirable  for  a  new  re 
gion.  If  the  question  concerned  a  community 
already  settled,  in  which  the  habits  had  been 
formed,  and  large  amounts  of  property  were 
invested  in  a  definite  condition  of  things,  the 
determination  of  it  might  be  more  embarrass 
ing  ;  but  our  western  territories  are  a  primi 
tive,  untrodden  ground — no  vested  interests  ex 
ist  there  to  be  disturbed — no  ancient  prejudices 
to  be  aroused — and  no  hoary  abuses  to  be 
overthrown.  All  is  fresh,  and  new,  and  unper- 
verted ;  nothing  stands  between  the  judgment 
of  what  is  best  for  them,  the  actual  truths  of 


NOKTHEUX    Oil    SOUTHERN,    WHICH?  303 

experience  and  reason,  and  the  instant  applica 
tion  of  them.  Now,  in  such  circumstances,  to 
doom  them,  for  years  to  come,  to  an  inferior 
social  system,  full  of  confessed  weaknesses,  full 
of  hopeless  evils,  full  of  disastrous  liabilities 
and  perils,  would  be  treating  them  with  a 
cruelty  which  a  brute  would  be  ashamed  of 
towards  its  young. 

But,  unfortunately,  the  politicians,  ever  dis 
inclined  to  contemplate  political  movements  in 
their  larger  and  humaner  aspects,  always  con 
trive  to  complicate  them  with  divergent  or 
collateral  issues.  They  will  not  look  at  them  in 
the  light  of  a  sound  political  and  social  philoso 
phy,  as  matters  which  may  control  the  happi 
ness  and  stamp  the  character  of  unborn  millions, 
and  to  the  decision  of  which  a  man  should  bring, 
nothis  selfish  cunning, but  his  maturest  wisdom, 
and  his  most  generous  sympathies ;  but  they 
look  at  them,  almost  exclusively,  as  they  bear 
on  the  distributions  of  power  and  their  own 
prospects  of  advancement.  It  has  fallen  to 
this  question  of  the  organization  of  our  ter 
ritories  to  be  decided  quite  on  these  grounds. 
Among  the  politicians  of  the  South,  it  has  be- 


304  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

come  a  desperate  struggle  for  the  retention  of 
their  ascendancy,  and  among  those  of  the  North, 
a  desperate  gamble  for  success  ;  and  between 
the  two,  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
been  cheated  out  of  their  rightful  control  of 
their  dependencies ;  and  the  people  of  the 
territories  themselves  subjected  to  a  series  of 
the  most  atrocious  outrages. 

In  the  whole  history  of  our  legislation,  there 
is  not  another  so  barefaced,  flagitious,  and  reck 
less  a  course  of  proceeding  as  that  which  ini 
tiated,  accompanied,  and  has  followed  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  compromise.  We  doubt,  indeed, 
whether  any  legislation  of  any  civilized  coun 
try,  this  side  of  the  French  revolution,  has  been 
marked  by  such  an  utter  want  of  principle, 
and  at  the  same  time  been  so  pregnant  with 
dangerous  consequences.  Wresting  from  the 
representatives  of  the  people,  under  false  pre 
tenses,  and  on  the  ground  of  a  mere  abstrac 
tion,  their  long-settled  right  of  legislating  for 
the  territories,  to  confer  it  upon  chance-comers, 
the  authors  and  abettors  of  squatter  sovereign 
ty  no  sooner  saw  it  in  exercise  than  they 
hastened  to  suppress  it  by  fire  and  sword. 


NORTHERN  OR  SOUTHERN,  WHICH?      305 

Flinging  out  the  prize  of  a  splendid  empire,  to 
be  won  by  a  scramble  between  the  two  parts 
of  the  Union,  already  inflamed  and  hostile,  they 
have  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  a  fratricidal 
war.  Inviting  the  settlement  and  organization 
of  the  territories  by  the  people  of  all  the  states, 
they  have  let  loose  the  wild  hordes  of  the  bor 
der  upon  a  particular  class  of  them,  and  de 
nounced  the  penalties  of  treason  against  their 
action  as  freemen.  Beginning  in  fraud,  they 
have  ended  in  force. 

It  is  in  the  power  of  the  Congress,  however, 
to  pass  the  crisis,  by  a  ready  recognition  of  the 
claims  of  Kansas,  as  a  free  state.  Her  action, 
like  that  of  Arkansas,  Michigan,  and  California, 
which  furnish  appropriate  precedents,  has  been 
somewhat  irregular,  but  in  no  respect  treason 
able.  Her  people,  provoked  by  every  incite 
ment  to  extremities,  have  deported  themselves 
with  temper  and  discretion.  They  are  not  com 
pelled  even  to  ask,  that  "  something  should  be 
pardoned  to  the  spirit  of  liberty ;"  but  are  amply 
justified  in  resting  their  case  on  its  naked 
merits.  Let  it  be  treated  with  a  manly  and 
truthful  independence,  and  let  those,  whose 


POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 


duty  it  is  to  dispose  of  it,  or  to  act  in  the  mat 
ter  in  any  way,  remember  the  profound  saying 
of  Emerson :  "  Never,  my  friend,  never  strike 
sail  to  a  fear.  Come  into  port  grandly,  or  sail 
with  God  the  seas." 


KANSAS  MUST  BE  FREE, 

No  man,  who  is  not  an  enemy  of  this  coun 
try,  can  look  upon  its  present  political  strug 
gle  with  other  feelings  than  those  of  shame,  in 
dignation,  and  alarm;  of  shame,  because  we  pre 
sent  to  the  civilized  world  the  spectacle  of  a 
great,  free  republic,  almost  rent  asunder  by  a 
contest  on  the  subject  of  human  slavery ;  of 
indignation,  because  our  men  in  power  have 
committed,  and  are  committing,  a  series  of  the 
very  grossest  outrages  against  the  dictates  of 
prudence,  as  well  as  of  justice  and  freedom  ; 
and  of  alarm,  because  there  seems  to  be  no 
probable  issue  to  the  conflict  but  in  civil  war. 

For  nearly  seventy  years  now,  the  delicate 
experiment  of  self-government,  instituted  on 
this  western  continent,  has  more  than  justified 
the  hopes  of  its  authors.  It  has  been,  in  every 
sense,  a  most  successful  experiment.  Every 
object  which  it  is  possible  or  desirable  for  a 


308  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

good  government  to  attain,  has  been  attained 
by  our  federation  of  republics.  Peace,  security, 
content,  wealth,  happiness,  have  followed  its 
operations,  with  an  amplitude  and  fullness  of 
fruition  that  were  never  before  witnessed. 
Neither  Sparta,  nor  Athens,  nor  Rome,  nor  the 
British  Empire,  nor  Russia,  nor  any  other  na 
tion,  noted  in  the  annals  of  mankind  for  early 
maturity,  has  exhibited  such  an  astonishing 
growth,  in  all  the  elements  of  national  great 
ness,  as  has  been  exhibited  by  the  United 
States  of  North  America.  Other  states  have 
taken  centuries  to  consolidate  their  power,  and 
even  to  secure  their  existence,  while  we  have 
sprung  at  once,  as  if  by  miracle,  into  the  most 
flourishing  vigor.  Our  territory,  within  the 
short  period  of  our  independence,  has  quadru 
pled  in  extent  ;  our  population  has  expanded 
tenfold  ;  our  commerce  equals  that  of  the  mis 
tress  of  the  seas ;  and  our  attainments  in  intelli 
gence  and  virtue  compare  favorably  with  those 
of  the  most  civilized  of  the  European  nations. 

During  this  time  of  unexampled  advance  and 
felicity,  but  one  question  has  arisen  among  us, 
likely,  from  the  nature  of  it,  to  interrupt  the 


KANSAS   MUST   BE    FREE.  309 

harmonious  continuance  of  this  happy  condi 
tion.  There  have  been  many  severe  and  earn 
est  conflicts  in  the  proceedings  of  our  political 
parties — much  excitement,  much  acrimonious 
feeling,  and  some  dangerous  revolts — but  the 
question  of  slavery  alone  has  become  a  touch 
stone  of  our  vitality.  Great  and  intense  as 
may  have  been  the  commotions  caused  by 
other  matters  of  difference,  they  have  been 
easily  settled,  either  by  a  clear  preponderance 
of  opinion  on  one  side  or  the  other,  or  by  sea 
sonable  compromise.  No  one  of  them  has  ever 
been  deemed  of  sufficient  importance,  to  fcazard 
the  peace  of  the  Union  upon  any  particular  de 
termination  of  it.  When  it  had  been  thorough 
ly  discussed,  when  parties  had  divided  upon  it, 
when  the  usual  bitterness  of  party  warfare  had 
exhausted  itself  in  intrigue  and  denunciation — 
the  vote  was  taken  and  the  people  acquiesced 
in  the  result.  Once  clearly  decided,  there  was 
an  end  to  the  debate.  Hostilities  were  sus 
pended,  and  the  country  went  on  its  way  in 
peace,  until  some  new  conjuncture  of  affairs 
presented  the  opportunity  for  new  combina 
tions  and  new  conflicts.  Thus,  the  question 


310  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

between  federalism  and  state  rights  distracted 
us  for  a  time,  but  gradually  passed  away. 
Thus,  the  internal  improvement  question,  and 
the  tariff  question,  and  the  national  bank  ques 
tion,  and  the  Texas  question,  have  led  to  heat 
ed  controversies,  and  subsided.  And  thus,  it 
was  supposed  that  by  the  compromises  of  1820, 
and  1850,  the  deeper  question  of  slavery,  after 
embroiling  us  for  years,  had  been  peacefully 
adjusted. 

But,  in  this  respect,  a  terrible  mistake  was 
committed.  All  the  events  of  the  day  show 
that  the  slavery  question  has  not  been  adjusted. 
The  contest  in  regard  to  it  rages  with  more  ve 
hemence  than  ever.  Every  part  of  the  nation 
is  excited,  aroused,  maddened  by  it ;  is,  indeed, 
almost  up  in  arms.  Persons,  who  have  hither 
to,  on  account  of  their  professions,  or  from 
indifference,  kept  aloof  from  politics,  are  deeply 
engaged  in  it ;  our  pulpits  resound  with  it  ; 
our  literature  is  filled  with  it ;  the  extremes  of 
feeling  have  passed  over  into  violence  and 
bloodshed ;  and  the  boldest,  as  well  as  the 
most  timid  minds,  begin  to  ask,  What  is  to  be 
the  end  ? 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  311 

It  is  of  some  moment,  then,  to  inquire  into 
the  causes  of  this  ferment  and  anxiety.  Why 
is  the  agitation  of  this  question  more  pervading 
and  active  than  that  of  any  other  ?  Why  are 
the  debates  of  Congress  fuller  of  exasperation 
than  ever  before?  Why  are  the  newspapers 
so  vituperative  and  truculent  ?  Why  are  the 
villages  of  Kansas  ablaze  at  midnight  from  the 
torch  of  the  incendiary,  and  why  is  a  senator 
smitten  down  from  his  very  seat  in  our  highest 
hall  of  legislation? 

Our  first  reply  is,  that  slavery  is  a  system  of 
such  peculiar  nature,  that  it  scarcely  allows 
of  rational  discussion.  When  it  is  discussed  at 
all,  either  in  the  way  of  attack  or  defense,  it 
inevitably  leads  to  a  distempered  expression  of 
feelings.  Among  those  by  whom  it  is  opposed, 
it  is  regarded  as  a  practice  at  once  too  mean 
and  criminal  to  admit  of  extenuation.  Touch 
ing  their  profoundest  religious  sensibilities  by 
what  is  esteemed  its  flagrant  violation  of  the 
very  idea  of  manhood,  and  appealing  to  the 
tenderest  sentiments  of  natural  compassion  by 
the  sufferings  ascribed  to  its  victims,  their  con 
victions  against  it  easily  inflame  into  passion- 


312  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

ate  hostility.  They  cannot  conceive  how  free 
men — and.  above  all,  Christian  men,  who  ought 
to  see  a  brother  in  every  human  being — can 
consent  to  doom  the  least  of  their  fellows  to  a 
remediless  bondage,  a  bondage  which  shuts  him 
out  forever,  not  only  from  the  means,  but  from 
the  hope,  of  all  progressive  civilization.  They 
are  incensed  by  the  thought.  The  ordinary  in 
justices  of  society  they  can  excuse,  because 
they  are  always  partial  in  tlier  extent,  and 
never  final  in  their  effects;  but  this  master- 
wrong,  embracing  an  entire  race  in  its  evils, 
and  looking  forward  to  no  probable  ameliora 
tion,  swells  into  an  enormity  of  offense  which 
it  is  impossible  for  their  charity  to  pardon. 
As  aggravations  of  this  general  sense  of  the 
turpitude  of  the  thing,  occasional  instances  of 
abuse  arise ;  some  refractory  subject  is  tortur 
ed  at  the  stake,  or  some  panting  fugitive  is  torn 
by  blood-hounds,  and  then  the  primitive  feeling 
is  kindled  into  a  fiery  indignation.  The  vials 
of  an  unmeasured  wrath  are  opened  upon  the 
slaveholder;  no  terms  of  reproach  seem  too 
severe  for  him  ;  his  conduct  is  arraigned  as  of 
a  piece  with  that  of  the  Thug,  the  vampire,  or 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  313 

the  pirate  ;  and  lie  is  morally  gibbeted  before 
the  world  as  the  proper  object  of  hatred  and 
scorn.  As  long,  then,  as  slavery  continues  to 
exist,  and  human  sympathies  remain  what  they 
are,  it  will  continue  to  be  opposed.  It  will 
be,  also,  violently  opposed.  Men  of  philosophic 
temper,  who  have  learned  from  history  how 
much  every  social  institution  is  to  be  judged 
relatively,  or  according  to  circumstances,  may 
be  disposed  to  qualify  their  opinions  ;  they  may 
lament  the  savage  and  intolerant  spirit  in  which 
those  who  are  mingled  up  with  it  are  assailed, 
but  the  many  make  no  such  distinctions  or  al 
lowances.  They  judge  of  all  things  on  broad 
and  absolute  principles.  They  perceive  in 
slavery  a  manifest  wrong  done  to  our  common 
humanity,  and  they  denounce  that  wrong  ex 
plicitly,  without  niceness  of  phrase  and  with 
out  meal  in  the  mouth.  Ever  since  the  two 
great  influences  of  Christianity  and  Democra 
cy  have  been  practically  received  in  society — 
the  one  proclaiming  the  right  of  all  men  to 
spiritual,  and  the  other  the  right  of  all  men  to 
temporal,  liberty — there  has  been  a  growing 

revolt  against  it — a  revolt  which,  in  stern  or 
14 


314  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

excitable  natures,  deepens    into  the  interisest 
animosity. 

On  the  other  side,  these  assaults  are  met  in 
a  spirit  of  resentful  and  arrogant  defiance. 
The  excited  slaveholder,  conceiving  his  rights 
to  be  attacked — fearing,  too,  the  dangerous 
consequences  of  any  tampering  with  them — 
repulses  even  more  fiercely  than  he  is  attacked. 
Could  the  vast  pecuniary  interests — the  incal 
culable  social  liabilities  which,  in  his  belief,  de 
pend  upon  the  continuance  of  his  authority — 
suffer  him  to  be  moderate,  the  habits  of  domin 
ion  in  which  he  is  trained  would  not.  It  is 
one  of  the  necessities  of  his  position  that 
he  should  be  quick  to  resent.  Accustomed 
to  an  unquestioning  obedience,  he  is  easily 
aroused  by  any  show  of  opposition.  But  let 
that  opposition  spread  widely,  and  take  a  some 
what  angry  and  vindictive  shape,  he  is  obliged 
to  rage  against  it  rather  than  to  reason.  "  A 
despot,"  says  Aristotle,  "  whenever  he  ascends 
the  throne,  takes  a  wild  beast  with  him  ;"  and 
the  slaveholder  is  a  despot  in  a  small  way. 
He  possesses  an  unlimited  power  of  control 
over  a  number  of  his  fellow-beings ;  and  it  is 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  315 

the  universal  testimony  of  history,  that  where 
such  a  power  is  exercised,  while  in  rare  cases 
it  develops  a  kindly  condescension  and  an  af 
fectionate  and  gentle  discipline,  it  betrays 
most  men  into  an  impatient  self-will  and  petu 
lance.  "  The  whole  commerce  between  master 
and  slave,"  says  Jefferson,  "  is  a  perpetual  ex 
ercise  of  the  most  boisterous  passions."  As 
slavery  originates  in  violence,  as  the  poor  Afri 
can  is  torn  from  his  home  by  violence,  is  trans 
ported  across  the  seas  by  violence,  and  is  sent 
to  this  land  or  that  by  violence,  so  he  can  be 
retained  in  his  subjection  only  by  violence. 
The  master  is  compelled  to  assert  his  authority 
by  force,  in  one  shape  or  another,  and  the  habit 
of  asserting  it  passes  more  or  less  into  his 
whole  conduct.  Because  he  may  not  make 
concessions  to  his  slave  with  safety  to  his  sys 
tem,  he  cannot  make  concessions  to  those  who 
would  plead  the  cause  of  the  slave.  Every  in 
terference,  even  of  the  law  or  of  opinion, 
becomes  an  impertinence.  He  must  reign 
supreme  over  these,  as  he  does  over  the  plant 
ation,  or  quit  the  grounds  of  his  power.  As 
serting  a  right  of  property  in  his  servant,  he 


316  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

claims  that  almost  absolute  disposal  of  it  which 
pertains  to  the  idea  of  property.  Yet  he  can 
not  trust  it  to  the  ordinary  safeguards  of  prop 
erty  ;  for  it  is  a  peculiar  species,  inflammable, 
locomotive,  furtive,  and,  sometimes,  given  to 
strike.  It  must  be  protected,  therefore,  by 
provisions  that  would  elsewhere  seem  fanatical 
in  their  severity.  When  other  property  is  as 
sailed,  society  contents  itself  with  the  lenient 
punishment  of  the  offender  ;  but  when  this  pe 
culiar  species  is  assailed,  even  by  word,  the 
offense  swells  into  the  gigantic  proportions  of 
a  capital  crime,  and  the  offender  is  placed  on  a 
level  with  the  incendiary  and  the  murderer. 
Other  kinds  of  property  may  be  debated  by  the 
publicist  or  the  editor,  its  abuses  exposed,  and 
the  legitimacy  of  it  even  called  in  question, 
but  this  kind  asserts  for  itself  an  inviolable 
sanctity.  It  must  not  be  touched  at  the  peril 
of  life.  Even  public  opinion,  wherever  it  pre 
vails,  is  benumbed  by  it  into  silent  acquies 
cence  ;  and  a  surveillance,  as  subtle  and  swift 
as  that  of  any  of  the  Roman  Caesars,  watches 
over  its  safety,  and  smites  the  remotest  malcon 
tent  with  paralysis. 


KANSAS    MUST   BE    FREE.  317 

Now,  a  controversy  between  the  anti-slave 
ry  feeling,  such  as  we  have  described  it,  and 
a  body  of  men  placed  and  educated  as  slave 
holders  are,  will  not  be  confined  to  a  pleasant 
exchange  of  words.  On  the  one  side  are  radi 
cal,  religious,  and  social  convictions,  inflamed 
to  a  pitch  of  fanaticism ;  and,  on  the  other,  vari 
ous  impulses  of  interest,  prejudice,  fear,  and  ha 
bitual  domination  concentrated  into  an  aggres 
sive  resentment.  How  can  the  encounter  of 
the  two  fail  to  be  a  fierce  and  internecine  war, 
animated  by  the  most  vehement  passions,  and 
looking  forward  to  no  close  but  the  moral  con 
quest  of  one  or  the  other  ?  Were  the  question 
simply  abstract,  like  a  theological  tenet,  or  a 
scientific  hypothesis,  this  diversity  of  sentiment 
would  lead  to  conflict ;  but  it  happens  in  this 
country  that  the  antagonism  is  related  to  the 
deepest  practical  considerations.  The  slavery 
question  is  one  of  political  power  as  well  as 
of  interest — it  is  one  of  conflicting  civilizations 
as  well  as  of  conflicting  opinion — one  in  which 
not  only  the  present  character,  but  the  future 
destiny  of  the  whole  country  is  involved. 

The  peculiarity  of  our  political  structure, 


318  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

therefore,  may  be  assigned  as  a  second  cause 
of  the  vivacity  and  vital  import  of  the  pre 
vailing  contest.  Our  constitution  has  coupled 
together  into  a  kind  of  wedlock  two  different 
orders  of  society — the  one  ancient  and  patri 
archal,  the  other  hoyden  and  capricious — com 
posed  essentially  of  the  same  races — yet  differ 
ing  widely  in  institutions,  tendencies,  and  aims. 
While  they  were  actuated  by  the  original  im 
pulse  of  their  union — which  was  the  achieve 
ment  of  a  national  independence,  and  the 
establishment  of  national  power — they  main 
tained  a  delightful  harmony.  They  caressed 
and  fondled  each  other  with  all  the  ardor  of 
young  lovers.  They  relieved  each  other's  bur 
dens,  encouraged  each  other's  virtues,  and  look 
ed  forward  complacently  to  years  of  increasing 
happiness,  and  a  long  line  of  descendants. 
But  these  early  fervors  could  not  disguise  the 
secret  existence  of  serious  distemperatures. 
In  the  progress  of  the  domestic  management, 
there  occurred  little  bickerings  and  tiffs,  which 
disclosed  a  somewhat  deep-seated  incompati 
bility.  It  began  to  be  felt,  more  and  more, 
that,  between  a  social  life  founded  upon  free- 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  319 

dom,  and  one  founded  upon  slavery,  there 
must  arise,  unless  prevented  by  an  almost  mi 
raculous  self-restraint  on  the  part  of  both,  in 
cessant  causes  of  discord.  It  began  to  be 
seen,  that  the  control  of  the  federal  power,  and 
by  means  of  that  of  the  character  of  the  ter 
ritories,  would  constitute  a  splendid  prize  for 
the  contentious  adjutancy  of  the  two  parts. 
Those  vast  and  lucrative  trusts,  inseparable 
from  the  central  head,  and  the  power  to  be 
wielded  in  a  thousand  forms,  through  its  many 
functions,  were  temptations  of  too  extraordi 
nary  a  nature  to  be  resisted  by  the  average  po 
litical  virtue  of  the  best  people.  Accordingly, 
they  have  become  the  rock  on  which,  if  any, 
we  shall  split.  It  is  universally  acknowledged, 
that  they  must  be  administered  in  the  interests 
and  for  the  ends  of  slavery,  or  in  the  interests 
and  for  the  ends  of  freedom.  Slavery  and 
freedom  cannot  both  be  national.  The  spirit, 
the  impulse,  the  aspirations  of  one  or  the 
other  must  prevail.  If  slavery  is  not  a  local 
thing,  peculiar  to  some  of  the  states,  then  free 
dom  is  local  and  peculiar,  and  must  withdraw 
more  and  more  from  the  dispensation  of  office 


320  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

and  the  control  of  legislation.  No  nation  can 
serve  two  masters,  if  the  policy  of  slavery 
gets  the  ascendant,  the  public  demeanor  must 
be  different  from  what  it  would  be  if  the  poli 
cy  of  freedom  preponderated.  Without  im 
puting  to  either  side  any  wanton  inclination  to 
molest  the  rights  of  the  other,  it  is  clear,  from 
the  inherent  necessities  of  the  two  systems  of 
society,  that  they  must  operate  in  quite  differ 
ent  directions.  Slavery,  at  the  best,  is  the 
government  of  a  dominant  and  privileged  class, 
and  cannot  fully  sympathize  with  the  broader 
life  of  a  whole  people.  Free  society,  on  the 
contrary,  is  buoyant  with  every  pulse  of  popu 
lar  feeling.  It  is  built  upon  the  original  idea 
of  our  Revolution — the  idea  of  free  and  equal 
rights.  It  is  pervaded  by  the  democratic  senti 
ment,  which,  towards  the  close  of  the  eight 
eenth  century,  spread  over  the  civilized  world, 
and  created  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  man 
kind.  But  the  other  system,  for  the  most  part, 
has  wandered  from  these  primitive  aspirations. 
Under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his 
school,  it  has  substituted  a  dogma  about  the 
natural  superiority  of  certain  races  for  the  old 


KANSAS   MUST   BE   FREE.  321 

doctrine  of  democratic  equality.  It  concerns 
itself  less  with  humanity,  and  more  with  phy 
siology.  It  has  learned  to  defend  the  subju 
gation  of  labor  as  a  just  and  normal  condition  ; 
and  its  proclivities  tend  to  the  perpetuation, 
not  the  amelioration,  of  the  anomalies  of  its 
social  existence. 

Thus,  we  find  our  confederacy  divided  into 
two  parts — fifteen  members  of  it,  with  a  white 
population  of  about  six  millions,  on  the  one 
hand — and  sixteen  members,  with  a  white 
population  of  thirteen  millions,  on  the  other — 
face  to  face  with  each  other,  in  a  severe  strug 
gle  for  the  mastery.  With  the  one  is  the  weight 
of  numbers,  wealth,  enterprise,  intelligence, 
and  exemption  from  domestic  dangers,  but  the 
other  enjoys  a  superiority  in  the  possession  of 
the  organized  forces  of  government,  in  direct 
ness  of  purpose,  and  in  compactness  and  energy 
of  action.  The  prestige  of  past  successes  is 
with  the  South — the  supine  and  cautious  con 
servatism  of  the  nation  is  with  it ;  the  restless, 
excitable  avidity  of  foreign  conquests,  by  a 
strange  juxtaposition,  is  also  with  it;  but  the 

conscience   of  the  nation  is   against   it ;    the 

14* 


322  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

literature  is  against  it ;  the  probabilities  of  the 
future,  founded  upon  the  natural  increase  of 
numbers  and  the  growth  of  opinion,  are  against 
it  ;  and,  on  this  last  account,  it  feels  through 
all  its  joints  that  it  must  conquer  now  or 
never.  Indeed,  it  is  obvious  to  both  parties, 
that  the  great  conflict  is  drawing  to  a  head, 
and  that  the  coming  presidential  election  will 
precipitate  a  decision.  That  event,  at  all  times 
bristling  with  excitements,  is  invested  with  a 
new  and  tremendous  import,  by  its  bearing 
upon  deeper  ulterior  issues.  It  is  marshaling 
the  two  orders  of  civilization  to  a  final  en 
counter  ;  already  the  sullen  clouds  of  the  storm 
are  flashing  their  menaces,  and  discharging  their 
bolts  along  the  remote  western  horizon — com 
paratively  harmless  as  yet,  but  filling  the  air 
with  a  vague  and  restless  foreboding  of  evil. 

But  this  allusion  leads  us  to  remark,  that 
while  the  slavery  dispute  is  so  irritable  and 
petulant  in  itself,  and  is  bound  up  with  such 
profound  collateral  issues,  there  is  a  third  and 
special  cause  for  the  existing  aggravations  in 
the  flagitious  course  which  the  politicians  have 
pursued  towards  Kansas.  That  rich  and  beau- 


KANSAS  MUST  BE  FREE.  323 

tiful  territory,  larger  than  the  kingdom  of 
Great  Britain,  and  equal  in  area  to  the  Aus 
trian  and  French  empires,  the  geographical 
centre  of  the  western  continent,  is  also  the 
pivot  of  its  most  vital  and  determinative  con 
troversy.  It  is  no  extravagance  to  say,  that 
what  the  plains  of  Iran  were  to  western  Asia 
— what  France  is  to  Europe — this  region  of 
Kansas  will  be  to  the  great  Valley  of  the  West. 
It  holds  the  key  to  the  entire  and  gigantic 
civilization  which  shall  soon  fill  up  those  soli 
tudes.  There  lie  the  granaries  of  the  New 
World ;  and  thence  shall  spring  the  seats  of 
future  empire.  For  years  to  come,  it  will  be 
the  goal  of  that  stupendous  migration  flowing 
from  the  exhausted  East,  and  for  years  again, 
from  its  capacious  womb  shall  proceed  the 
busy  millions  destined  to  redeem  or  to  disgrace 
the  extensive  fields  beyond.  Like  a  great  in 
land  lake — which  receives  the  many  streams 
of  the  mountains,  and  pours  them  forth  again 
in  mighty  rivers — Kansas  will  color  both  what 
it  takes  and  what  it  gives,  and  become  the 
source  of  a  beneficent  fertility,  or  a  remediless 
blight. 


324  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

For  nearly  half  a  century  this  pregnant  cen 
tre  was  consecrated  in  perpetuity,  by  a  solemn 
act  of  legislation,  to  freedom — an  act  which,  as 
Mr.  Douglas  said  in  his  Springfield  speech  of 
1849,  "  received  the  sanction  of  all  parties  in 
every  section  of  the  Union."  "  It  had  its  ori 
gin,"  he  continues,  "in  the  hearts  of  all  pa 
triotic  men  who  desired  to  preserve  and  per 
petuate  the  blessings  of  our  glorious  Union — 
an  origin  akin  to  that  of  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States,  conceived  in  the  same  spirit 
of  fraternal  affection,  and  calculated  to  remove 
forever  the  only  danger  which  seemed  to  threat 
en,  at  some  distant  day,  to  sever  the  social  bond 
of  union.  All  the  evidences  of  public  opinion 
at  that  day  seemed  to  indicate  that  this  com 
promise  had  become  canonized  in  the  hearts 
of  the  American  people  as  a  sacred  thing, 
which  no  ruthless  hand  would  be  ever  reckless 
enough  to  disturb."  But,  in  1854,  that  "  ruth 
less  hand"  was  raised.  Although  it  was  not 
demanded  by  any  exigency  of  state,  uncalled 
for  by  a  single  voice  among  the  people,  it  was 
recklessly  raised  by  Mr.  Douglas  himself,  in  the 
lowest  spirit  of  demagogery. 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  325 

The  bulwarks,  which  had  beaten  back  the 
billows  of  a  lifetime,  were  thrown  down  on  the 
pretense  of  the  abstract  right  of  each  locality 
to  the  sovereign  disposal  of  its  own  affairs — a 
pretense  which,  if  it  had  been  well  founded, 
was  then  purely  gratuitous.  The  effect  was, 
to  fling  away  this  magnificent  domain  to  a  rab 
ble  of  competitors.  As  the  Roman  empire,  in 
the  days  of  its  degeneracy,  was  sold  to  the 
highest  bidder,  so  this  empire  of  the  future 
experienced  the  more  degrading  fate  of  aban 
donment  to  the  mob.  All  the  riff-raff  of  the  bor 
ders — men  of  rude  and  violent  natures,  regard 
less  of  principles,  and  avid  of  plunder — were  in 
vited,  along  with  soberer  citizens,  to  a  pell-mell 
scramble  for  the  prize.  The  world  saw,  with 
astonishment,  a  great  republic  surrendering  its 
right  to  the  control  of  its  dependencies,  sur 
rendering  its  noble  prerogative  of  fixing  the 
character  of  inchoate  and  unsettled  communi 
ties,  to  the  precarious  arbitrament  of  a  miscel 
laneous  herd  of  first  comers.  It  saw  the  few 
honest  and  legitimate  settlers,  who,  taking 
their  fortune  in  their  hands,  had  gone  thither 
with  an  exalted  purpose  of  founding  a  state 


326  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

worthy  of  the  most  advanced  modern  civiliza 
tion,  overwhelmed,  in  their  very  first  attempts 
at  organization,  not  by  the  red  savages  of  the 
wilds,  but  by  the  white  savages  of  the  border. 
If  there  is  anything  made  clear  by  the  united 
testimony  of  private  letters  and  public  inves 
tigation,  by  the  almost  unanimous  concurrence 
of  the  emigrants,  by  the  confessions  of  their 
adversaries,  and  by  the  faithful  scrutiny  of  the 
Committee  of  Congress,  it  is,  that  the  first 
election  for  the  legislative  constitution  of  the 
territory  was  not  an  election  but  an  invasion. 
An  election  is  the  free  choice  of  their  rulers  by 
a  people  who  have  a  right,  under  the  laws,  to 
such  a  choice.  But  this  election  was  turned 
into  a  military  occupation.  A  foreign  army, 
somewhat  irregular  as  to  its  discipline,  but 
with  all  the  equipage  and  appliances  of  a  be 
sieging  host,  marched  into  the  polling  places, 
as  the  French  army,  in  1848,  filed  through  the 
streets  of  Rome,  or  as  the  English  are  in  the 
habit  of  taking  possession  of  some  Indian  zillah. 
It  came  in  detachments,  with  drums  beating 
and  colors  flying — with  arms  and  ammunition, 
and  baggage-wagons — and  pitched  its  tents  and 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  327 

posted  sentries,  and,  driving  the  inhabitants 
from  the  ballot-boxes,  voted.  -  If  the  judges  of 
the  election  were  docile,  it  made  the  most  ad 
mirable  effort  to  preserve  the  peace ;  but,  if 
they  were  refractory,  others  were  put  up  in 
their  stead.  Having  accomplished  its  purpose, 
not  without  a  number  of  incidental  outrages, 
this  valiant  band  returned  to  its  Missouri  home. 
In  every  assembly  district,  it  appears  from 
the  evidence  before  the  Congressional  com 
mission,  these  frauds  were  perpetrated.  Of 
course,  the  legislature,  which  resulted  from 
them,  was  a  seditious  and  usurping  body.  It 
had  no  more  authority  to  act  than  the  maraud 
ing  troop  by  which  it  was  appointed.  In  no 
sense  was  it  a  representation  of  the  people. 
The  pretext  that  the  certificate  of  "  due  elec 
tion"  given  by  Governor  Keeder  to  two-thirds 
of  the  members,  in  the  absence  of  objections 
to  the  returns,  conferred  upon  them  a  legal 
character,  might  have  been  true,  if  he  had  been 
a  judicial  instead  of  a  mere  ministerial  agent. 
But  his  act  was  only  declaratory  of  a  subsisting 
fact,  and  not  decisive  of  an  actual  right.  It 
was  formal,  not  final.  It  were  monstrous  to 


328  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

suppose  that  the  liberties  of  a  whole  nation 
could  be  suspended  upon  a  mere  clerical  func 
tion.  Imagine  that  Governor  Reeder  had  set 
aside  all  the  returns,  and  given  his  certificates 
to  friends  of  his  own,  would  that  have  consti 
tuted  them  a  valid  legislature  ?  Could  not  the 
people,  in  that  case,  either  in  their  primary 
capacity,  or  through  an  appeal  to  Congress, 
vacate  his  act  ?  Assuredly  they  could ;  for 
there  is  no  maxim  or  principle  of  law  more 
firmly  established,  than  that  fraud  in  any  pro 
ceeding  vitiates  it  from  the  beginning.  Be 
sides,  if  we  admit  that  Governor  Reeder  was 
the  proper  and  exclusive  judge  of  the  legality 
of  the  legislature,  it  follows  that  his  primary 
recognition  of  it  was  nullified  by  his  subse 
quent  refusal  to  recognize  it,  after  it  had  re 
moved,  contrary  to  the  organic  act,  the  place 
of  its  assemblage.  The  same  law  which  em 
powered  him  to  certify  the  election-returns, 
empowered  him  to  fix  the  place  of  legislation, 
and  if  his  action  was  binding  upon  the  people 
in  one  case,  it  was  no  less  binding  in  the  other. 
That  this  pretended  legislature  knew  itself  to 
be  illegally  constituted,  is  evidenced  by  the 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  329 

whole  course  of  its  proceedings.  They  were 
the  proceedings  of  conspirators,  and  not  of  a 
deliberative  assembly.  More  tyrannical,  atro 
cious,  and  malignant  acts,  were  scarcely  ever 
decreed  by  an  eastern  satrap  against  a  subject 
province,  than  were  passed  by  these  men,  in 
the  name  of  law,  against  their  own  assumed 
constituents.  From  the  earliest  ages,  among 
every  people  making  the  slightest  pretensions 
to  freedom,  the  right  of  free  speech,  the  puri 
ty  of  suffrage,  the  independence  of  the  press, 
the  exemption  of  the  citizen  from  arbitrary 
arrests,  from  vindictive  penalties,  and  from 
unusual  oaths,  have  been  cardinal  and  sacred 
objects.  In  those  darker  days  of  monarchical 
despotism,  when  our  forefathers  of  England 
laid  the  foundation  of  that  glorious  polity 
which  sheds  a  lustre  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon 
name,  these  were  the  guiding  stars  of  all  their 
struggles.  At  this  day,  on  the  continent  of 
Europe,  the  heaviest  grievance  of  the  oppress 
ed  multitude's,  for  the  removal  of  which  they 
have  often  undertaken  desperate  and  sanguina 
ry  revolutions,  is  their  deprivation  of  the  rights 
of  free  opinion  and  utterance  in  regard  to  the 


330  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

action  of  government,  and  the  institutions  of 
society.  Yet,  these  legislators  of  Kansas — in 
view  of  these  holy  and  imprescriptible  rights — 
rights  which  are  the  very  essence  of  a  free 
commonwealth — with  the  hot  haste  of  pirates, 
eager  for  the  life  of  their  victims — struck  them 
out  of  existence.  Those  precious  defenses  of 
the  citizen — speech,  the  press,  the  bar,  the  jury 
— were  alike  invaded  with  inquisitorial  zeal. 
It  was  enacted,  1st,  that  any  person  who  should 
print,  write,  or  speak  anything  "  against  the 
right  to  hold  slaves  in  the  territory,"  should 
be  deemed  guilty  of  a  felony  :  2nd,  that  no 
person  should  exercise  the  elective  franchise, 
or  be  allowed  to  practice  in  the  courts,  with 
out  first  swearing  to  support  the  fugitive  slave 
law  :  3rd,  that  any  person  speaking  or  writing 
anything  calculated  "to  promote  a  disorderly, 
dangerous,  or  rebellious  disaffection  among 
slaves,"  should  be  punishable  with  imprison 
ment  at  hard  labor  for  five  years ;  4th,  that 
any  person  aiding  a  slave  to  escape,  or  assisting 
at  an  insurrection,  should  suffer  death ;  and 
5th,  that  no  person  opposed  to  slavery  could 
sit  on  a  jury  in  which  offenses  against  these 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  331 

acts  were  brought  in  question  !  and,  finally,  as 
if  these  provisions  themselves  were  not  enough, 
the  future  elections  of  the  territory  were  so 
arranged,  that  persons  opposed  to  slavery  were 
disfranchised,  and  everybody  else,  whether  an 
actual  citizen  or  not,  on  the  payment  of  a 
nominal  tax,  was  suffered  to  vote.  The  entire 
scheme,  it  will  be  seen,  had  nothing  in  it  of 
legislation  for  a  community  of  mingled  opin 
ions,  but  was  throughout  a  proscription  and 
persecution  of  a  particular  class.  Everything 
was  to  be  prostituted  to  slavery,  as  in  the 
darker  ages  of  the  world  everything  was  pros 
tituted  to  a  form  of  religion.  Slavery  was  the 
state,  the  church,  the  all — the  one  thing  to 
be  sustained  at  all  hazards.  No  man  can  read 
the  clauses  of  these  enactments,  as  they  stand  on 
the  statute-book,  without  deriving  the  pro- 
foundest  conviction  that  the  authors  of  them 
were*  playing  a  desperate  game,  in  which  no 
consideration  of  principle  or  honor  entered,  but 
the  whole  was  fraud. 

Cheated  of  all  legitimate  government,  there 
remained  two  courses  for  the  actual  settlers  to 
pursue — to  appeal  to  the  federal  authority  to 


332  POLITICAL   ESSAYS. 

maintain  the  law,  grossly  violated,  and  to  un 
dertake  to  institute  a  government  for  them 
selves,  and  both  these  courses  were  pursued. 
Unfortunately,  and  by  a  single  forgetfulness  of 
duty,  to  use  no  harsher  term,  the  federal  au 
thority  had  already  committed  itself  to  the 
cause  of  the  ruffians.  Whether  it  was  imbe 
cility,  or  roguery,  or  sheer  tyranny,  or  all  these 
combined,  which  constrained  him,  does  not  ap 
pear;  but  the  President,  who  in  Massachusetts 
had  used  the  army  of  the  United  States  to  cap 
ture  a  runaway  negro,  could  find  no  occasion 
for  his  interference  in  the  armed  resistance  of  a 
mob  to  an  ordinance  of  Congress.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  did  whatever  he  could,  indirect 
ly,  to  encourage  the  sedition.  He  patronized 
its  agents — he  instructed  his  own  agents  to 
assist  and  abet  them — and  at  last,  when  a  di 
rect  blow  in  behalf  of  slavery  would  be  most 
effective,  he  found  the  right,  so  long  heW  in 
abeyance,  to  order  an  army  into  the  territory. 
Meanwhile,  the  settlers  had  adopted  the 
second  alternative,  of  framing  a  government 
for  themselves.  In  technical  strictness,  the 
authority  for  this  proceeding  ought  to  have 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  333 

come  through  Congress  ;  but  as  the  popular 
doctrine,  as  the  doctrine  on  which  the  territory 
itself  was  organized,  was  that  of  "  squatter 
sovereignty,"  and  as  precedents  existed  in  the 
cases  of  Michigan,  Arkansas,  and  California — 
in  which  states  had  been  formed  without  the 
aid  of  Congress — they  concluded,  with  Madi 
son,  that  in  such  emergencies  "  forms  ought  to 
give  way  to  substance."*  With  all  due  pub 
licity,  and  in  the  most  perfect  order,  a  new 
government  was  formed,  its  officers  appointed, 
and  application  for  admission  into  the  Union 
made. 

But  in  the  way  of  the  execution  of  this  de 
sign,  harmless  as  it  appears,  there  stood  two 
formidable  lions.  In  the  first  place,  the 
wretches,  who  had,  at  the  outset,  plundered 
them  of  their  rights,  gathering  strength  and 
number  from  the  encouragement  of  the  pro- 
slavery  party  everywhere,  were  again  ready  to 
pounce  upon  them ;  and,  in  the  second  place, 
the  United  States'  authorities — judges,  juries, 
marshals,  colonels,  sergeants,  and  dragoons — un- 

*  Federalist,  No,  40. 


334  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

der  new  definitions  of  treason,  and  the  most 
audacious  stretches  of  law,  and  to  the  utter 
disregard  of  justice,  were  sent  to  assist  at  the 
cremation.  Between  the  two,  the  friends  of 
the  Free  State  cause  were  crushed  to  the  earth, 
their  leaders  were  arrested,  their  property  pil 
laged,  their  houses  burnt,  and  their  families  dis 
persed.  The  details  of  the  infamous  rout  still 
fill  the  journals.  A  systematic  suppression  of 
freedom,  begun  by  the  outlaws  of  the  frontier, 
has  been  conducted  to  a  bloody  end  by  the  ad 
ministration.  It  would  seem  as  if  freedom  in 
Kansas  had  become  an  irritation  and  a  nuisance 
to  men  in  power,  just  as  the  simple  worship 
of  the  Albigeois  was  to  the  fierce  zeal  of  the 
Dominicans,  or  as  the  trade,  the  wealth,  and 
the  independence  of  the  Netherlands  became 
to  Philip  the  Second.  Its  presence  there  dis 
turbs  and  rebukes  them,  as  the  presence  of 
Mordecai  at  the  gate  of  the  king  did  Haman. 

Doubtless,  there  has  been  considerable  ex 
aggeration  in  the  reports  of  the  trials  and  suf 
ferings  to  which  the  settlers  have  been  exposed  ; 
doubtless,  there  have  been  excesses,  both  of 
word  or  deed;  committed  by  themselves  ;  for* 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  335 

in  times  of  high  excitement,  a  uniform  temper 
ance  is  not  to  be  expected  ;  but  the  single  fact 
which  glares  upon  us  through  all  the  turmoil, 
and  all  the  conflicting  rumors,  is,  that  a  peace 
ful  and  honest  movement  in  behalf  of  freedom 
has  been  extinguished  by  force.  Disguise  it  as 
we  may,  palliate  or  justify  it  as  we  may,  this 
is  still  the  fact ;  and  it  falls  upon  the  heart 
with  a  frightful,  almost  stunning  effect.  In 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a 
land  preeminent  for  its  pretensions  to  liber 
ty,  an  effort  to  save  the  future  key  of  the 
continent,  from  the  universally  acknowledged 
evils  of  human  bondage,  has  been  precipitate 
ly,  wantonly,  disastrously,  arrested,  if  not  for 
ever  baffled.  It- is  a  fact  which  compels  us  to 
inquire,  whether  our  pride  in  the  supposed  su 
periority  of  our  age  and  nation,  in  the  spirit 
of  justice,  and  in  the  love  of  rational  liberty, 
may  not  prove,  after  all,  but  a  pleasing  self- 
deception. 

These  are  the  public  or  general  causes  of 
that  erethism  of  politics  which  marks  a  fever 
ish  access ;  but,  to  increase  its  energy,  there 
came  upon  the  top  of  the  deplorable  events  in 


336  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

Kansas,  an  event  of  a  personal  nature,  which 
possessed  also  a  national  significance.  We 
refer  to  the  disgraceful  attack  upon  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  That 
any  man,  were  he  the  most  despicable  member 
of  that  body,  should  b*e  stricken  to  the  floor  by 
the  hands  of  a  member  of  the  other  House, 
for  the  just  exercise  of  his  constitutional  rights, 
and  for  the  faithful  expression  of  the  senti 
ments  of  his  constituents,  is  an  offense  which 
ought  to  excite  a  universal  reprobation.  But 
when  that  man  is  one  of  its  most  accomplish 
ed  members — a  gentleman  by  habit  and  educa 
tion,  a  scholar,  a  profound  jurist,  an  eloquent 
speaker,  an  upright  citizen,  as  remarkable 
for  the  amiableness  as  he  is.  for  the  dignity 
of  his  deportment,  and  whose  fame  has  pene 
trated  both  hemispheres — the  offense  grows 
into  an  enormity  beyond  the  reach  of  lan 
guage  to  describe.  We  share  in  the  feeling 
of  earnest  indignation  with  which  it  has  been 
almost  everywhere  rebuked  at  the  North,  but 
this  feeling  is  not  unmingled  with  a  deeper  one 
of  humiliation  and  alarm.  We  are  humiliated  by 
the  thought  that  the  manliness,  the  honor,  the 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  337 

good  sense  of  the  republic  should  have  so  far 
degenerated  in  any  quarter,  as  to  admit,  and 
what  is  worse,  to  approve  a  brutality  so  gross. 
And  we  are  alarmed  lest,  in  the  reaction  of  the 
public  mind  against  the  outrage,  it  should  be 
led  to  nurse  its  exasperated  feelings  into  a  set 
tled  purpose  of  revenge.  The  best  of  men 
often  retain  so  much  of  the  animal  in  their 
composition  that  they  are  moved  beyond  them 
selves  at  the  sight  of  blood — 

" si  torrida  parvus 

Yenit  in  ora  cruor,  rediunt  rabiesque,  furorque" — 

and  how  much  more  apt  are  the  multitude  to 
be  carried  to  an  excess  of  rage  ?  There  was 
malice  and  uncharitableness  enough  in  public 
sentiment  before,  without  adding  this  fuel  to 
the  flame.  There  was  violence  enough  in  the 
tone  of  public  discussion,  without  extending 
it  to  actual  blows.  That  game  once  begun, 
where  is  it  to  end  ?  The  people  of  the  free 
states,  fortunately,  are,  by  their  religious  edu 
cation,  and  by  their  habits  of  industry,  inclined 
to  peace ;  they  are  docile,  patient,  and  forbear 
ing — qualities  which  men  of  violence  are  apt 
15 


338  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

to  despise — but,  once  aroused,  and,  our  word 
for  it,  that  the  energy,  which  has  enabled 
them  to  conquer  themselves,  to  conquer  the 
inclemencies  of  nature,  to  conquer  by  their 
enterprise  every  rebellious  sea  and  every  de 
fying  mountain,  will  be  carried  into  the  pur 
suits  of  strife.  It  is  a  most  dangerous  and  for 
midable  demon  which  the  slave  states  invoke, 
when  they  conjure  up  the  spirit  of  physical 
force.  Like  the  Afrite  of  the  eastern  tale,  it 
may  seem  to  them  only  a  bottle  of  smoke  in 
the  beginning,  but  that  smoke,  once  let  loose 
upon  the  air,  will  raise  its  head  into  clouds,  and 
its  hands  will  become  like  winnowing  forks, 
and  its-  nostrils  trumpets,  and  its  eyes  a  con 
suming  fire.  The  one  great  lesson  taught  of 
human  history,  written  in  crimson  letters  on  a 
thousand  pages,  is,  that  "  he  who  takes  the 
sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword."  Unless  the 
journalists  and  the  public  men,  who  have  ap 
plauded  this  murderous  deed,  are  prepared  for 
the  worst  extremities,  they  will  recall  their 
insane  and  passionate  approval.  We  cannot 
conceive  a  folly  more  suicidal  for  them  than 
that  which  would  appeal  to  the  arbitrament 


KANSAS    MUST   BE    FREE.  339 

by  combat.  If  they  dread  free  discussion,  if 
they  distrust  the  decisions  of  the  ballot-box, 
they  have  still  less  to  hope  from  a  resort  to 
arms. 

It  will  be  seen,  that  it  is  not  a  consolatory 
view  we  have  been  compelled  to  take  of  our 
public  affairs,  and  yet  they  are  not  altogether 
hopeless.  If  the  ruffianism  of  Washington  and 
the  borders  should  have  the  effect  of  awaken 
ing  opinion  to  the  real  issues  before  the  coun 
try,  it  will  compensate  for  much  of  its  evil. 
Under  the  existing  organization  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  with  the  prevalent  usages  of  parties, 
which  have  thrown  them  almost  entirely  into 
the  hands  of  corrupt  managers,  nothing  is  to 
be  expected  from  those  sources.  A  regenerate 
and  united  public  sentiment  is  alone  equal  to 
the  task  of  retrieving  our  unhappy  decline. 
The  time  has  come  when  every  honest  man, 
whatever  his  party  politics,  who  deems  the  Re 
public  worthy  of  his  care,  should  determine  to 
arrest  the  downward  tendency  of  things.  He 
is  solemnly  called  upon,  by  every  exigency  of 
the  times,  to  decide  whether  the  materialism, 
the  barbarism,  the  worst  and  lowest  impulses  of 


340  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

the  social  state,  or  the  higher  and  better  influ 
ences  of  our  democratic  civilization,  are  to  pre 
vail.  Shall  the  generous  and  manly  confidence 
of  our  fathers  in  the  doctrine  of  human  rights 
continue  to  be  ours,  or  shall  we  surrender  it 
to  the  narrow  and  base  lusts  of  an  oligarchy  ? 
Shall  the  magnificent  empires  growing  up  on 
the  western  shores  of  the  Mississippi  become 
the  homes  of  an  industrious,  peaceful,  benefi 
cent  freedom,  or  shall  they  be  given  over  to  the 
chain-gang  and  sterility?  These  are  the  ques 
tions  of  the  day,  and  the  trial  questions  of  our 
destiny.  If  the  wicked  scheme  for  the  perpet 
uation  and  extension  of  slavery — of  which  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  the  first  clause — is 
to  be  carried  into  complete  effect— if  the  noble 
yearning  for  freedom,  which  is  the  inspiration 
and  life  of  the  North,  is  to  be  suppressed  at 
Washington,  and  excluded  from  the  territories 
by  force — let  Ichabod  be  written  upon  the 
doors  of  our  temples,  for  the  glory  will  be  de 
parted.  It  is  impossible  that  slavery  and  a 
vital,  genuine  republicanism  should  thrive  and 
spread  together ;  it  is  impossible  that  bond  la 
bor  and  free  labor  should  work  cheek-by-jowl 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  341 

on  the  same  soil ;  it  is  impossible  that  a  spe 
cial  class  should  rule  the  people,  and  the  peo 
ple  still  retain  their  supremacy  and  power.  In 
a  nation  otherwise  free,  slavery  may  prolong  a 
subordinate  existence  for  years,  but  when  it 
leaps  into  the  ascendant,  the -spring  of  the  na 
tional  life  is  broken.  A  disease  may  linger 
long  on  the  extremities  of  a  system,  which 
would  be  fatal  to  it  the  moment  it  touches  the 
great  central  organs.  Confined  to  its  original 
localities,  the  slave-system  of  the  United  States 
was  pernicious  only,  or  chiefly,  within  the 
limits  of  those  localities  ;  but  when  the  spirit 
and  the  power  of  it  invaded  the  general  gov 
ernment,  and  sought  a  diffusion  over  the  terri 
tories,  it  became  a  universal  evil — an  evil 
which,  unless  arrested,  and  again  confined  to 
its  primitive  range,  wTill  dry  up  the  sources  of 
the  most  noble  and  glorious  progress. 

As  we  read  the  chronicle's  of  the  nations, 
from  the  dim  traditions  of  the  early  eastern 
dynasties,  through  the  splendid  annals  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  down  to  the  latest  record 
of  our  own  era,  we  are  struck  by  the  uniformi 
ty  with  which,  after  a  longer  or  shorter  career, 


342  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

they  have  all  succumbed  to  the  influences  of 
foreign  conquest  or  of  civil  war.  We  see  them 
grow  for  a  time  with  marvelous  rapidity,  they 
attain  to  a  broad  and  stately  dominion,  their 
storehouses  swell  with  abundance,  and  their 
arts  shed  lustre  on  the  age  ;  but  soon  they  sink 
as  rapidly  as  they  rose,  arid  are  left  like  ruins 
upon  the  desert — desolate  and  pitiable — the 
wolf  howling  from  their  deserted  chambers, 
and  the  bitterns  crying  from  their  broken 
pools.  The  writers  of  history  describe  the 
mournful  experience,  and,  wisely  or  unwisely, 
speculate  upon  its  causes.  They  seek  for  a  so 
lution  of  the  problem  in  fanaticism,  in  bad 
morals,  in  luxury,  in  the  degeneracy  of  race, 
and  in  the  inscrutable  decrees  of  Providence — 
and  read  us  many  a  lesson  out  of  the  conclu 
sions  at  which  they  arrive.  But  the  prevalence 
of  a  cause,  as  universal  as  the  effect,  and  as 
deep  and  powerful  as  the  selfishness  of  man, 
they  have  not  always  signalized.  It  is  that 
separating  and  corrosive  spirit,  which  denies 
the  equal  claims  of  all  humanity.  "  Whether 
we  regard,"  says  one,  "  the  caste-systems 
of  Egypt  and  India,  the  martial  despotism  of 


KANSAS    MUST    BE    FREE.  343 

Persia,  the  rule  of  wealth  and  craft  in  Phoeni 
cia,  or  the  class-divisions  of  Greece,  and  Home, 
and  Judea,  one  obvious  characteristic  will  be 
found  pervading  the  ancient  nations ;  every 
where  the  social  fabric  was  built  upon  the 
assumption  of  the  natural  inequality  of  man, 
upon  the  necessary,  because  divinely  appoint 
ed,  inferiority  of  certain  races.  Not  in  the  su 
perstitious  tenets  and  observances  of  heathen 
theology,  nor  in  the  absence  of  a  law  of  right 
and  wrong,  nor  in  any  want  of  the  higher 
powers  of  humanity,  nor  in  the  fatal  uncon 
sciousness  of  their  weakness,  nor  in  any  diffi 
culties,  from  which  we  now  have  exemption, 
thrown  in  the  way  of  a  wider  benevolence,  nor 
in  the  lack  of  such  advantages  as  we  are  li 
censed  to  reap  from  the  discovery  of  printing, 
etc. — but  in  the  universal  dogma  of  human  ine 
quality,  we  find  the  sufficing  reason  for  the  im 
perfect  freedom  and  the  inevitable  decline  of 
the  greatest  empires  of  antiquity."  And,  while 
it  is  the  peculiarity  of  Christianity  that  it  did 
proclaim  the  divine  brotherhood  of  man,  not 
on  the  ground  of  any  expediency  or  conve 
nience,  but  upon  the  broad  foundation  of  the 


344  POLITICAL    ESSAYS. 

common  fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  common 
redemption  by  Christ — it  is  also  true  of  all  the 
Christian  nations,  that  they  have  risen  or  fallen, 
according  to  their  fidelity  to  this  eternal  stand 
ard.  It  was  the  departure  from  this,  by  the 
dissolute  emperors,  which  rendered  the  Western 
Empire  an  easy  prey  to  the  barbarians,  and, 
after  a  protracted  but  ineffectual  struggle,  gave 
the  Eastern  Empire  to  the  Turks  ;  it  was  ad 
herence  to  this  which  lifted  the  Papacy  into 
European  dominion,  and  the  abandonment  of  it 
which  toppled  it  from  its  throne ;  it  was  the 
popular  sympathies  of  the  Italian  republics 
which  made  them,  for  nearly  two  centuries,  the 
mothers  of  all  industry,  learning,  and  art,  and 
the  growth  of  aristocracy  which  consumed 
their  strength  :  it  was  the  bigotry,  and  far- 
reaching  despotism  of  Philip  which  prostrated 
the  grand  Spanish  monarchy  to  a  degradation 
and  feebleness  from  which  there  has  been  no 
resurrection ;  and  it  was  the  heartless  tyran 
ny  of  the  Louises  which  kindled  the  train 
of  the  world-exploding  French  revolution.  If 
the  Romanic  nations  were  once  like  Lucifer, 
the  sons  of  the  morning,  and  have  since  fallen 


KANSAS    MUST   BE    FREE.  345 

like  Lucifer,  it  was  because  they  admitted  to 
their  souls  Lucifer's  infernal  ambition.  If  the 
Teutonic  nations,  and  especially  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  branch,  have  carried  the  principles  of 
religion,  of  literature,  of  stable  government, 
of  progressive  civilization  over  the  world,  it  is 
because  they,  less  than  others,  have  accepted 
the  downward,  and  backward,  and  paralyzing 
spirit  of  caste.  Humanity  is  one,  it  is  indisso 
luble,  it  is  sacred  ;  who  lays  his  lightest  finger 
upon  it  to  do  it  harm,  seals  his  own  doom  ;  he 
degrades  and  weakens  himself  in  others  ;  he 
touches  the  ark  of  God,  in  which  he  has  de 
posited  his  most  precious  treasures. 

When  our  country  ceases  to  cherish  a  love 
for  the  rights  of  man,  she  will  have  parted 
with  the  secret  of  her  strength.  "When  she 
takes  to  her  heart  any  other  worship  than  that 
of  humanity,  justice,  truth,  she  will  have  ad 
mitted  the  serpent  into  her  Eden.  Whatever 
may  be  the  policy  and  the  course  of  individual 
states,  there  is  for  the  nation  but  one  policy 
and  one  course.  Our  birthright  of  freedom  is 
our  only  and  eternal  safeguard. 
15* 


321  BROADWAY,  SEPTEMBER  1,  1856. 


A 
LIST  OF 


PUBLISHED  BY 


DIX,    EDWARDS    &   CO. 


JTJST  PUBLISHED. 

In  Two  Volumes.  Svo.,  Price  $4.50. 

MEMOIRS     OF     FREDERICK     PERTHES;     OR, 

LITERARY,  R.ELIGIOUS,  AND  POLITICAL  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 
FROM  1789  to  1843.  From  the  German  of  CLEMENT 
THEODORE  PERTHES,  Professor  of  Law  in  the  Univer 
sity  of  Bonn. 

"  The  life  of  this  excellent  and  distinguished  man  affords  a  per 
fect  insight  not  only  into  the  recesses  of  German  life  in  those  hard 
and  troublous  times,  but  into  the  very  hearts  and  minds  of  the 
actors  and  sufferers.  Nor  can  we  imagine  a  more  touching  picture 
of  love  and  faith  than  that  exhibited  by  Frederick  Perthes,  and  his 
valiant  and  affectionate  wife.'7 — Mrs.  Austin's  Sketches  of  German 
Life  from  1760  to  1814. 

"  We  cannot  name  a  book  so  replete  with  the  most  substantial 
materials  for  a  thorough  knowledge  of  Germany,  as  this  Life  of 
the  great  Hamburgh  Publisher.  His  faculty  of  drawing  all  that 
was  good  and  great  within  the  sphere  of  his  action,  into  quiet  sym 
pathy  and  living  harmony  with  himself,  is  truly  wonderful.  His 
letters  form  a  running  commentary  on  the  history  of  his  country 
for  the  age  in  which  he  lived." — North  British  Review. 

"  It  is  a  most  admirable  work  in  all  respects,  full  of  a  rich  expe 
rience  of  life,  and  inspired  by  a  practical  wisdom  of  the  most  val 
uable  kind.  I  do  not  think  that  any  book  has  been  published  in 
this  country  within  the  last  twenty  years — not  even  excepting  Dr. 
Arnold's  Life — containing  a  richer  display  of  materials." — 
J.  S.  BLACKIE,  Esq.,  Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 

[Continued  to  next  Page. 


LIST    OF    WORKS    PUBLISHED    BY 


Notices  of  "Memoirs  of  Perthes"  continued. 

"  Perthes  was  the  intimate  and  respected  friend  of  Klopstock, 
the  Poet,  of  Niebuhr,  the  historian,  of  William  von  Humboldt,  the 
philologist,  of  Johannes  von  Miiller,  the  statesman  and  writer,  of 
the  Counts  Stolberg,  of  the  Princess  Galitzin,  of  Jacobi,  and 
Eichhorn,  and  of  Claudius  and  Heeren.  And  besides  these  he 
numbered  among  his  confidential  acquaintances,  Goethe,  Gorres, 
Schlosser,  Voss,  the  Schlegels,  Schelling,  Savigny,  Varnhagen  von 
Ense,  and  others  scarcely  less  distinguished.  He  was  in  constant  in 
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